White-fronted Goose

I used some time off between Christmas and New Year to see if I could make any late additions to my year list. High on my list of "possibles" was the White-fronted Goose. With some cold Easterly winds blowing in from Russia, there had been a bit of an influx in the previous week. Nothing had been reported locally, but I thought there'd be a good chance to find one in amongst the local flocks of Canada and Greylag Geese. I managed to find  a few last year, so I knew where would be a good place to look. 

As it turned out, I got extremely lucky. A wrong turning took me somewhere I had no intention of going. I got out of the car just as some geese flew over my head and landed in the next field. It looked like mainly Greylags, but always worth being thorough and checking them all. BINGO!!! One Russian White-fronted Goose. It didn't make it easy as it kept ducking down and walking behind the Greylags. When your luck's in, your luck's in. A final addition to the Year List, which finished at 196.

White-fronted Goose (centre with the striped belly)

The white front above the bill just visible, and distinctly smaller than the Greylags.

Russian White-fronted Goose - Redesmere

Just a few weeks back when I carried out one of my monthly water bird counts for the BTO I made the comment that hopefully something good will turn up soon here at Redesmere. For the majority of the year the water holds the usual suspects of Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Canada Geese and Gulls, it's just how many of them there are on a given day. In the winter months though, you could get anything turn up. A couple of years ago I found a Great Northern Diver here, I've also had Black Tern and a Smew, but these are not the norm. Last week, whilst looking for a Kingfisher a group of Greylag Geese dropped in. I gave them a scan with the bins, and spotted a smaller goose that had a distinctive white flash on it's face. I started to get a bit twitchy and moved to get better views. I took some distant shots and asked the local Whatsapp group for confirmation of my suspicions.

This was indeed a Russian White-fronted Goose. A bird I struggle to see most years, and on others it's required a long walk or drive to see. And here was one turning up whilst I'm out watching. When you're luck is in!!! A great bird to add to my year list, and a bird that many others were able to enjoy and see for themselves. I'm not being greedy, but I'd now like something else to turn up please 😃

White-fronted Goose

I'd just like to say a Merry Christmas to everyone that has visited my blog this year. I love reading your comments and I really enjoy being able to share what I see, however common the birds or animals are. I hope to post more regularly in 2020 as I try and count 200+ species within the year. I've never cracked it yet, but I've never found enough time. I plan to make more time. So stick with me, and hopefully it will be a successful birding year.

The main bird featured here today is likely to be my last tick of the year and it was a lifer too. Not far from my home is large body of water called Redesmere. I now volunteer for the BTO to count the wildfowl on here every month. I popped along to see what might be on the water. Among the 100+ Greylag Geese was one goose that had a very obvious white blaze on it's bill. I knew that this wasn't common amongst Greylags, but was on White-fronted Geese. The size difference was also quite noticeable, with it being 1/3 to 50% smaller than the Greylags.

I needed confirmation for this ID, as I had never seen one myself in the field before and so asked a good birding friend of mine, and it was quite quickly confirmed as a Eurasion White-fronted Goose.
I was delighted, and this was not what I expected to see on this visit, but I was so glad I popped over. Just shows you that anything can turn up anywhere. You just have to be there to see it.

You can see the smaller goose with it's white blaze in the centre of the pictures below.

This I believe is a juvenile White-fronted Goose that was also present on the same day.