David and I had a late start
today due to the icy conditions and headed for Start Pit at Dogthorpe, which is
just the other side of Peterborough as there had been both Iceland and Glaucous
Gulls present yesterday. On route we had
four Red Kites and five Buzzards before reaching Star Pit. On arrival there were two other birders
present who informed us that the second-winter Iceland Gull was present. During our ninety minutes stay we saw the
Iceland Gull on several occasions but there was no sign of the Glaucous Gull,
although two had been seen earlier on a pool within the tip complex. There were also three Red Kites over the area
most of the time and two Buzzards and a Kestrel were also observed.
Red Kites
We eventually decided to go to
Guyhirn in the hope of seeing a couple of Bean Geese we had dipped on earlier
in the month. There were plenty of
Whooper Swans and a few Bewick’s Swans present and we located eight distant
grey geese. They were clearly either
Pink-feet or Beans but the light and distance made it impossible to
specifically identify them. I walked
further along the bund to try and get a better view and was followed by David
and another birder who informed that the geese had flown and landed amongst a
group of closer swans. However whilst we
could see several of them we were now looking directly into the sun and
couldn’t see any bare part colouration or other distinctive features. I walked further along the bank hoping to get
better light and as I was scanning for the geese the swans behind me started to
call and looking behind me they had decided I was perhaps a bit too close for
comfort and flew over the drain and the swan flock with geese and then they all
flew some distance and we gave up.
We returned to Star Pit but
there were fewer gulls on the pool although we did see the Iceland briefly
again and a Sparrowhawk flew over. David
needed to get back and so we had to leave but found out that before leaving
that the Glaucous was present at about 13:30 for a short while but not since.
On the way home another
Sparrowhawk flew across the A47 close to the A1 junction but we saw very little
else. It had been a beautiful if cold
day but rather frustrating not seeing either the Bean Geese or Glaucous Gull.
No comments:
Post a Comment