Martin Mere - Pink Footed Geese

I had been keeping an eye on the WWT website Martin Mere for the arrival of the Pink footed geese, on their stop over from their Scandanavian and siberain breeding grounds to their wintering grounds in and around the Norfolk area. Martin Mere estimate about 30,000 pink foots are now here, and they were all over the place on the ground and in the skies, the only downside was the weather, it started off nice and bright with plenty of blue sky, but soon clouded over and it turned very grey, which didnt help with the photography, but nevertheless a spectacular sight and sounds! Other highlights was seeing more of the Whooper Swans arriving from Iceland, a distant Peregrine, and watching Martin Meres new Asian Otters being fed.











There were thousands coming in over the Ron Barker hide.






Lots were landing in the fields around the Mere.



Other geese about today were Greylags.















Wherever I looked there were huge flocks coming in to land







I could see from the main mere that huge flocks were dropping behind the Ron Barker hide, when i got there there was thousands on a smaller lake with loads more dropping down.





I knew that there was already about 100 Whooper Swans arrived from Iceland for the winter, but they are expecting about 1600 over the next month or so, so it was great to see families arriving from their long journey down from Iceland.









Once safely landed on the Mere some noisy family bonding started.



Then replacing lost energy reserves on the tons of potatos laid on for them.

As well as the geese and swans there was lots of other species about and below are highlights of some of them.



Hovering Kestrel just out of camera range.



Scanning around all the likely fence posts finally saw a Peregrine, but well out of camera range!



Lots of Teal around today.







Plenty of Greylags also on the main Mere.



Big flocks of Lapwings also about, this one landed in a very nice pose!



Big flocks of Starlings over the reed beds

Before I left I went to have a look at the new display containing Asian Otters, and by luck I arived as they were being fed, great little animals, and was pleased with the photos through the glass screen in front of their display.

















And finally who can resist a photo of the beautiful Flamingos.

Garden Goldfinchs

I don't know what the national situation is but locally in Preston it seems to have been a very good summer for Goldfinchs, and I have discovered the killer food to attract them to your garden, I previously relied on nijer seed and had a lot of Goldfinchs visit regularly but I bought some Sunflower Kernals and within days I was getting 20/30 Goldfinchs at anyone time fighting to get on the feeder and bird table, with lots of this years youngsters amongst them. The photos below were taken this week, the left hand feeder has the sunflower kernals in and at the moment I fill it each morning and by mid afternoon its just about empty, with lots of Dunnock picking up the spills off the floor below. The photo quality is not great as the photos were taken through the conservatory window!







As you can see they are very competitive and constantly scrapping to get a peg on the feeder.







One of this years juvenile birds



A contented adult tucking into the Sunflower kernals.

Secretive Birds

Have spent some time recently sorting through and organsing the hundreds of photos I took over the summer, the joys of digital! Anyway found some photos I had forgotten about of some of our more secretive or rarer birds. I was a little disappointed with the quality but they were mostly taken quite hurried, a case of right place right time!

First photo is a Sedge Warbler, taken at RSPB Leighton Moss



The next photo I was well pleased with as this was the first time I had seen a Water Rail, at RSPB Marshside, Southport.



Not as rare as the previous birds, but equally secretive, a Jay, captured at Meresands Wood.



Last photo for this post, a very secretive bird, Treecreeper, I spotted this walking along the path at Meresands Wood, thankfully the light was good enough for a decent picture.