I'm Alright Jack

Managed a good 3 hours or so trawling around the patch this morning where conditions were, on the whole, reasonably mild, calm and bright.
I came across at least 6 goldcrests in Freeman's Wood along with the usual common stuff including jay, great-spotted woodpecker and treecreeper.
At Freeman's Pools there were 23 gadwall, 24 coot, 7 little grebe and single each of goldeneye and tufted duck as well as the expected other bits and pieces. Around 50 lapwing were on the island.
The usual mass of greylag and Canada geese were out on Aldcliffe Marsh where I once again spotted the bar-headed goose (pictured).

 Among the many greylags I was able to read the letters on all 4 of the collared geese I could find. As I've mentioned previously on these pages, these birds were fitted with these distinctive orange collars at Windermere. Researchers are trying to determine the movements of this particular group of birds and it will certainly be interesting to find out what these geese get up to at various times of the year.

 A flock of c140 pink-footed geese came in (presumably from grazing in the Oxcliffe area? - or further afield?) and settled on the marsh.

As yet I haven't seen any common snipe in Snipe Bog this autumn / winter, but a single jack snipe was a nice find there today.

Other stuff seen around the area included peregrine, sparrowhawk, kestrel, fieldfare, little egret and skylark.  

Jon