Birding With Brent And Todd

It was a struggle to know what to do this morning; high tide wasn't until 12:30 pm and they're big high tides at the moment so at low water the tide would be a long way out. It is possible to sea watch at low tide at the Obs, but the location doesn't afford any shelter and in the 25-30 mph westerly wind that was blowing this morning that wasn't an option. There was only one thing to do and that was have a walk down to the saltmarsh and estuary.

As I was walking down Pink-footed Geese were leaving their roost and I had 578 heading inland to feed. A few Redwings, 16 in all, and a Song Thrush were in the scrub, and on the pool were just seven Tufted Ducks, seven Coot, a Little Grebe and a male Goldeneye.

A flock of 36 Goldfinches were  roving around the saltmarsh edge and the only other passerines here were Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipit. I walked to the edge of the saltmarsh to look on the estuary and boy was it cold in the blustery westerly. In fact I was getting 'battered' so much that I just did a quick count of 862 Lapwings, 18 Shelducks, 20 Mallards and 360 Teal.

I bumped into Ian and we headed back to have a look through the 'Pinkies' that had dropped into the fields. There was about 5-600 Pinkies and amongst them were two pale-bellied Brent Geese and the two Todd's Canada Geese. So it wasn't a bad couple of hours birding after all.

 Brent Geese

Todd's Canada Geese

It just remains for me to send you all Seasons Greetings and I hope 2015 is full of good birds for you!