Popped down to the park this morning to find most of the Canada Geese on the meadow and a quick count totalled 94 plus 17 goslings. There was a batch of 6 goslings, quite old, so not sure where they have come in from.
A nice surprise was an Egyptian Goose with the Canadas. It was much more wary than the Canadas, they stayed put as I walked along the path but it flew onto the lake. Following are a few shots of it after it had flown onto the lake.
 |
| Egyptian Goose |
 |
| Egyptian Goose |
 |
| Egyptian Goose with Canada Geese |
I included the last shot as it shows the size difference between Egyptian and Canada Geese.
Staying with the Goose theme, 11 Greylags, in total, flew over in groups of 9 and 2.
There were quite a few Swifts about and at least a couple of Sand Martins. After my last post where I said the Sand Martins weren't nesting in the artificial nest block I saw one of the holes being used this morning. I saw 2 visits to the same hole and judging by the time of each visit they seemed to be feeding visits, although just guessing as I was unable to tell if they were carrying food with my binoculars.
I moved down to the Spit where there was little of note but a Cuckoo was calling over to the east side of Fingers and then a second started calling over towards the Dead Seat. Unfortunately no photo's but I did see the 2 fly past over east fingers.
A quick look around the Crescent and then an unfamiliar call got my attention. It was a single note piping call, repeated but interspersed with Pied Wagtail like calls. I moved around to the fishing swim in the south east corner of east Fingers. Sure enough there was an adult Pied Wagtail with its beak stuffed full of insects. There were at least 3 Wagtails there with at least one juvenile but I didn't want to hang around too long as I didn't want to disturb them too much.
 |
| Pied Wagtail |
