More Geese, Gulls and a Goldcrest

This winter's goose-fest seems to be showing no signs of abating, whether that is from birds moving south from further north or existing flocks fragmenting and moving around locally it's hard to tell. As mentioned in my previous post I took another look at the Maiden's Hall flock at the end of last week, here are a couple of Iphonescoped Tundra Bean Geese with a few Pink-footed Geese from Friday.

 

Saturday after spending another hour looking at not much on the sea I stopped off at Bothal Pond  and was happy to find a small party of White-fronted Geese. I was even more pleased when it became apparent that both races were present with a single 'Greenland' race individual and six 'European' race birds. The Iphone image below whilst poor quality does highlight the different bill structures of the two races reasonably well.

Monday I headed out to the fish quay with the kids for a bike ride and after an energetic hour I managed to squeeze in a short look at the Black Middens and managed to jam in on the 2nd-winter Iceland Gull that had been around two days earlier, at least I presume it was that individual but this year who knows! Always roosting, in the short time I had it never moved and I'm still waiting to see a bill.

A Brambling in the garden on Sunday reminded me they seem to be in scarce supply this winter so far. This afternoon we took a woodland walk and I had my first Goldcrest of 2012, flitting around in some Hornbeam as well as some splendid Redwings doing their best to blend with the burnt orange of the setting sun. At least two Short-eared Owls were circling the community park as we came past late afternoon with all three kids getting another look at the 'Shorties'.