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.