For many, it's a way of keeping in touch with what their favourite celebrities are up to. Now the RSPB is using social media in the form of Twitter to track the arrival of thousands of wintering geese.

As part of a UK-wide initiative, the conservation charity is asking people in Norfolk to 'tweet' sightings or pictures of the birds they see as they arrive on their migration.

Every year hundreds of thousands of pink-footed, greylag and brent geese feed and roost on farmers' fields and coastal estuaries in West Norfolk.

Their appearance traditionally heralded the start of autumn. The first birds make the thousand-mile flight from Iceland in early September, but the bulk of them do not arrive in Norfolk until October, when skeins thousands-strong can be seen flying inland from the coast each morning.

Brent geese travel from Siberia, appearing later in the year, with the first sightings in Norfolk usually occuring from the end of September.

Numbers of geese were seen in Scotland on Friday. A handful of the birds were also seen on former gravel workings near Swaffham on Sunday.

Rachael Murray, RSPB media officer for the east, said: 'The arrival of the geese is very much a highlight of Norfolk's wildlife calendar, and the first are due any day now. By using Twitter to report sightings we can track their progress online and get an idea of where the large flocks are stopping across the country.'

The RSPB is asking anyone with a Twitter account to share their goose sightings or pictures by using the #goosewatch hashtag.