As Brian and I drew up in the parking space at Winter's Pit, adjacent to East Halton Marshes, we could see the group of grey lag geese feeding on the grassy bank of the pit next to the car park. Reaching for the bins it was easy to pick out the single Russian white-fronted goose among them. It was easy to differentiate from the grey lags as it has a prominant white blaze around the base of the bill and noticable black markings on the belly and flanks. Two distinct populations of white-fronted geese winter in the UK: birds breeding in Greenlant migrate to Ireland and SW Scotland, while those breeding on the tundra in the far north east winter in west, central and SE Europe. This was a good start to the day and after checking the rest of the birds on the bank and scanning the pit we headed along the track at the rear of the marshland.
It was wet down here and wellies were appreciated but it was not so bad as I anticipated. The marsh, however was more flooded than I have seen it.
On reaching East Halton Skitter where the beck runs out to sea, we were impressed with the amount of water in the beck, higher than I have ever seen it. Up on the sea wall it was time for some lunch: tomato soup, Christmas cake and cheese, marvellous. As we were eating we watched with trepidation a squall blowing in from the north. Fortunately most of it missed up but it did produce a splendid rainbow. Wandering back to Winter's along the sea wall we noticed again how flooded the marsh was. On reaching the pit I was pleased to find a female goldeneye and we had excellent views of a fox on the far side.
We saw 43 bird species, 2 foxes and nine roe deer, a great start to the new year.
No comments:
Post a Comment