Goosander Mergus merganser

The Goosander is a wide spread breeding species occurring in the woodland parts of the country and in the inner parts of  the Baltic archipelagos.

In winter, it is well spread in the archipelagos as long as these are ice-free, also occurring on inland lakes and streams when open water is available. In mild winter only small numbers are seen along the open coasts, but big numbers can concentrate here during ice winters. Big flocks of more than 10,000 individuals are of regular occurrence on some lakes in south Sweden during late autumn. At the county-wide survey in January 2004 close to 18,000 were counted, but the coverage of inland streams was quite incomplete. In January 2015, a mild winter about 35000 were found in the coastal areas. The wintering population was probably larger as the coast in the areas north of the Stockholm archipelago were not counted at this occassion and had only small ice coverage. Moreover there were appreciable numbers in inland Sweden.

In January 2016 - 2018 the coasts of the Bothnian Sea north of the Stockholm archipelago was covered with a number of sites that were normally ice-covered during the early years of midwinter counts. In January 2017 1300 Goosanders were counted here on 85 sites.

Both the September and Midwinter longterm indices show significantly increasing trends with small annual increases. The midwinter indices increased markedly to the mid-1990s but decreased later even if the long-term trend still is slightly increasing.

Goosander January 2015