A trip to Old Moor this morning was interrupted when, after about an hour in the Mere Hide, a couple of 'grey-geese' flew through. Although they were quite distant the upperwing appeared to have the 'brownish look' of Bean Goose or perhaps White-front but after cranking up the mag on the 'scope I was pretty certain they lacked white face blazes ruling out adults of the latter at least. Nowhere near enough contrast for Greylags and two 'necky' (and brown) for Pinks they looked pretty good for Beans so I called up on the radio to find out if anyone was at Broomhill which was the direction they were flying. Dave Waddington was in his loft and picked them up heading towards Edderthorpe reaching pretty much the same conclusions as me. He got on the blower to Al Stonier who was at Edderthorpe and soon got on two 'grey geese' passing over which he said did not call like Pink-feet. Sadly however, this is where the trail went cold as despite the fact that Al thought they landed we were unable to relocate them, however, as the flock of around 30 White-fronts that were there recently proved geese can certainly get lost for long periods at Edderthorpe. So in conclusion, two 'grey geese' sp.
eg when in doubt leave um out!
Next on to Ingbirchworth. News reached me that yesterdays report of 'some Beans' referred to a report of five 'Tundra Beans' apparently hiding behind walls in fields at the west (inlet) end of the Reservoir. They were first seen flying over with c100 Canada Geese. Anyway, spent a couple of hours looking but nothing other than a small flock of Greylags. There are a lot of fields up there and it has hosted Beans before including the Barnsley areas second ever record, a party of nine on 27th December 1987 - 19th February 1988, so keep looking.
1 comment:
The fields betrween Darfield and Ardsley look really good for geese as many of the fields are used for grazing cattle and horses.
The 33 white-fronts are an indication of what the valley is capable of. Unfortunatly these geese were hounded out of the valley by people shooting in the fields near Edderthorpe at the same time as disturbance in the field at the back of Broomhill.
Suitable swan/geese habitat is required in the valley that is free from disturbance. A safe sanctuary established in the Broomhill / Wombwell Ings area would allow things like white-fronts and bean geese to hang about more often.
Been up the road on the Derwent today. It's still not flooded. Only a few pools between Wheldrake and North Duffield. The Dearne is likely to pick up birds that would otherwise be on there e.g. wigeon, pintail, teal and of course geese.
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