Gazing at Greys Grazing

Dan here.

Went out this morning with geese on my mind.

However, Aldcliffe Marsh was almost devoid of grey geese, with just five pink-feet in the midst of a whole mess of Canadas.

I heard a distant clamour of greylags and tracked down the regular flock which was feeding in the centre of Colloway Marsh (a few hundred metres south of my jurisdiction, actually!) and also using improved and muddy maize stubble fields NE of Overton.

Associating with them were at least nine european white-fronted geese so I was glad I sat down and 'scoped them.
There's been an interesting and welcome movement of this species across Britain in the past couple of weeks. Bean geese too-- so with a lot of luck a nice little herd of taigas might drop in for a day or two soon.

Fingers crossed.

Passerines highlights within the parish (!) included a group of four goldcrests, three southbound skylarks and a few rock and meadow pipits.

A merlin (arch enemy of pipit-kind) was also seen.

DH.