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Milder Winters Helped Make Hortobágy a Wintering Area for Greater White-fronted Geese

A flock of greater white-fronted geese flying over a wetland at Biebrza, Poland.
Research · Ecology

Milder winters were the main factor associated with the emergence of Hortobágy National Park in eastern Hungary as a regular wintering area for greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons), according to a 31-year study published in March 2026. Systematic counts from 1989 to 2019 showed that numbers using the area increased from fewer than 2,000 to more than 30,000 birds.

The researchers analysed 378 counting occasions together with long-term weather data, land-cover change, cropland availability and hunting disturbance. Spring counts increased especially rapidly in the early part of the study, while autumn numbers rose more strongly in later years. The local increase outpaced growth of the wider Pannonic flyway population during comparable periods, indicating that a growing share of the flyway population was using Hortobágy. Before 2000, most geese left the area for wintering grounds elsewhere, but increasing numbers began to remain through December and January after the turn of the century.

Winter counts rose from almost zero to tens of thousands

December peak counts rose from virtually zero to around 10,000 birds and reached about 30,000 in 2014–2016. Winter counts were higher in milder conditions, while more frost days were associated with fewer geese.

Peak counts of greater white-fronted geese in December and January at Hortobágy, 1989–2019
Winter counts at the Hortobágy Central Fishponds, 1989–2019. Orange bars show December peaks and blue bars January peaks. Figure 3 from Gyüre and Lengyel (2026), CC BY 4.0; reproduced without changes.

Land-cover change did not explain the shift

Changes in local land cover were small, and the area sown with maize and wheat declined rather than increased. Hunting disturbance outside the national park also increased and may have helped concentrate geese in the protected area, but the authors considered its effect less important than that of climate.

Sources and image credit

  1. Gyüre, P., & Lengyel, S. (2026). Flyway population increase and emergence of new wintering grounds with climate change in an Arctic-breeding goose. Scientific Reports, 16, 11878. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-40447-0Study of greater white-fronted goose counts at Hortobágy, Hungary, in 1989–2019, together with weather, land cover, cropland availability and hunting disturbance.

Image: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons. Wild greater white-fronted geese in flight at Biebrza, Poland, 7 April 2023. Representative species photograph, not the Hortobágy study site. Cropped to 16:9. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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