The Goose Field
Ballygilgan is a field, and for half the year that’s all it is – an ordinary improved pasture grazed by cattle and sheep on the Maugherow Peninsula in north Sligo. Then in October the geese arrive, and it becomes the single best place in Ireland to see them. Around 3,000 barnacle geese – Ireland’s biggest mainland flock – fly in from Greenland to overwinter here until April, which is why everyone calls it the Goose Field (in Irish, Machaire na nGéanna; you’ll also hear Seafield). One local count has put the number above 4,000 in recent years; the NPWS figure is about 3,000. Either way, it’s a lot of geese in one field.
The detail that makes a visit worth timing: the geese don’t sleep here. Every night they fly out to roost on the island of Inishmurray, off the coast, and come back at first light. So the spectacle isn’t the static flock – it’s the mass take-off at dusk and the return at dawn, thousands of birds lifting off together. Come for those, not for the middle of the day.
When to come, and the honest caveat
This is a winter site, full stop. From late October to early April it’s exceptional; the rest of the year it’s a grazed field with a pond and not much reason to stop. The birds are at their most active at dawn and dusk, so a midday visit even in winter can be underwhelming. The car park is small and fills on good winter mornings – arrive early.
The reserve was given legal protection in 1986, after the barnacle goose numbers fell through the 1970s. Recovery came from grassland management and a hunting ban: it’s a wildfowl sanctuary, so no shooting, and each autumn the cattle and sheep are taken off so the geese have the grass to themselves through winter. The geese breed in eastern Greenland, stage through Iceland on migration, and winter here and in western Scotland.
What else is here
Beyond the headline flock, the reserve and the surrounding Drumcliff Bay are rich in birds:
- The seasonal pond draws teal, wigeon, shoveler and the occasional pintail; red-throated diver, red-breasted merganser and long-tailed duck turn up on the bay in winter.
- The mudflats at low tide feed bar-tailed godwit, dunlin, oystercatcher, sanderling, redshank, greenshank, lapwing and golden plover, with brent geese also wintering in the bay.
- A cereal patch at the eastern end is left to attract wintering finches and buntings.
- In summer, when the geese are gone, the dunes carry a good show of wildflowers – common spotted and pyramidal orchids, lady’s bedstraw and kidney vetch. The kidney vetch feeds small blue butterfly larvae, and bird’s-foot trefoil the six-spot burnet moth.
Practical information
- The hide: there’s a purpose-built bird hide in the Coillte woodland at the western (Lissadell) end of the reserve – the best place to watch without disturbing the flock.
- Getting there: the reserve is on the road between Carney village and Lissadell, in north Sligo. A small free car park sits near the entrance; get there before mid-morning in winter.
- Entry: free, year-round.
- Facilities: none on site – no café, no toilets. Use Carney or Lissadell.
- Dogs: keep dogs on a lead and well under control – disturbing the geese is the one thing that undoes the point of the place.
- Birding: the Sligo branch of BirdWatch Ireland monitors the bay’s birds through the Irish Wetland Bird Survey; they’re the people to check for local outings.
Nearby
The reserve sits in the corner of Sligo most worth lingering in: Lissadell House and its gardens are next door, Streedagh Beach and its Armada history are a short drive north, and Benbulben dominates the skyline inland, with Yeats’ grave at Drumcliff on the way. Pair the dawn goose flight with breakfast in Sligo afterwards and you’ve used the early start well.