If It Wasn't For Todd It Would Hardly Have Been Worth Posting

There was a mid-morning tide today and the wind had blown quite a strong southwesterly all night, so the only option was to do some sea watching. I got to the tower just as it was coming light, a leisurely 0815 at the moment, and set out my stall. I had full cloud cover and the wind was a good 30 mph southwesterly. Just some of the ingredients required for a decent sea watch, the missing ingredient being the visibility, and the visibility was absolutely awful!

I could see no more than a few hundred metres out to sea and consequently all I had was eleven Cormorants, two Eiders and a male Red-breasted Merganser! After just over an hour of this incredible pelagic action I decided to go and try and find the Geese as Ian had two Todd's Canada Geese amongst them yesterday. Sure enough I found the 'Pinkies' pretty quickly and in the throng were the two Canada's.

I had a quick look on the Distinguishing Cackling and Canada Goose article on the 'Sibley Guides' website and they seemed to fit the description there pretty well:

"B. c. interior – Hudson Bay Canada Goose – Similar in size to canadensis, mantle somewhat browner and darker, with dark continuing uninterrupted to black of neck, feather edges on dorsum average darker, contrasting less with black of neck, breast light to medium grayish towards slaty gray."

 Some dodgy shots (above & below) of the Todd's Canada Geese. The light

was awful and they were quite a long way from the road; that's my excuse 

anyway!

There was probably about 450 Pink-footed Geese in the field and whilst I was watching the Geese five Whooper Swans flew over. 

The forecast is similar for tomorrow, but not quite as windy, and high tide will be nearer lunchtime. I have to feed my Tree Sparrows tomorrow, so I'll decide what I'm going to do birding wise when I've stuck my head out of the door in the morning and had a peek at the weather.