Goose leaves people baffled after being photographed flying upside down

Attention has turned to a bizarre image of a goose that has surfaced online – who appears to be defying convention and flying upside down.

Photographer, Vincent Cornelissen, took to Instagram to showcase the odd sighting in the Dutch town of Arnhem, which shows the dark grey and white bean goose in what initially appears to be an edited image.

“I was afraid that no one would believe me. The image looked like it was edited in Photoshop.” The amateur photographer told ABC 12. Though the image was posted a few months back, people are baffled about why geese do this.

“I got a message from a Dutchman who lives in Norway and knew this phenomenon. He lives next to a lake and regularly sees geese doing this. [I found that] there is even a name for it: a whiffling goose.”

According to Arran Birding, whiffling is a behaviour where “a bird rapidly descends with a zig-zagging, side slipping sort of motion.”

“Sometimes a bird will even fly briefly with its body turned upside down but with its neck in a normal position”, as seen in Vincent’s image.

“This erratic motion resembling a falling leaf may be used by the geese to avoid a long, slow descent over an area where wildfowling is practised and they could be shot, or maybe the geese whiffle because it is fun.”

Speaking about his discovery, Vincent said, “I saw that one of the three had trouble flying in a straight line. He was having a hard time which I thought was because of the wind. He seemed to be struggling, so I took some pictures of him.”

“I immediately realized that I had captured something special”, he added.