Snow Goose: I found myself with a free day, as Dawn took Autumn to her sisters for the day so I decided to spend the morning at Martin Mere and see if the snow goose I saw the previous weekend was showing any better today.
They are native to North America and are rare vagrants to the UK, but also a frequent escapee from waterfowl collections. There is a feral breeding population of snow geese also, thought to be around 100 pairs.
Although these feral flocks are typically found on the Inner Hebrides and other smaller feral flocks in Norfolk and Hampshire. Any snow geese that are usually considered to be genuine ‘wild’ birds are those occurring with carrier flocks of Greenland white-fronted geese in northwest, Scotland and Ireland. Yeah, so I think the fact it’s associating with greylags does it no favours. But who knows?
Lapwing: I spent a few hours in the hide overlooking the mere, watching c40 whooper swans many showing really close to the hide, honking and whooping at each other.
In the fields surround the mere and flocking overhead where c2000 pink-footed geese were sighted and there were c150 greylag goose keeping the snow goose company on the mere too.
It was a really pleasant way to spend the morning, not only with the Autumnal flocks of wildfowl but with the company of Marcus and his dad Dave Owen. Good to catch up lads.
