It's been a long time since I added a bird to my Swineham patch list - mainly because it's been a long time since I've been there - but with a bit of wetter, colder weather recently I made the effort yesterday. To my great surprise I was rewarded with a flock of 22 Barnacle Geese which, unbeknown to me at the time, had been seen earlier in the day flying west past Hengistbury Head and through Poole Bay before pitching down on the gravel pit. The origins of such birds is inevitably moot - there are feral flocks elsewhere in Britain and on the near continent, as well as the wild populations from Greenland, Svalbard and high-arctic Russia. While one of the former seems the more likely explanation, I'm ticking them anyway!
 |
| A flock of Barnacle Geese pitch up at Swineham |
 |
| A small, attractive goose, much smaller than the local Canada Geese |
 |
| Male Stonechat at Swineham |
No comments:
Post a Comment