I decided to have a walk at Holkham beach this afternoon as I hadn’t been there in some time. At this stage of the year there’s the chance of both snow bunting and shorelark there – regular winter visitors – but I didn’t see either of those species today. The light was stormy and interesting though.
And to my delight there was another red-breasted goose among a small flock of about 50 Brent geese: I had seen that alongside the juvenile I had seen near Wells there had been an adult bird sighted, but I didn’t know it had flown over to Holkham! It was a little distant but looked great through the telescope. The group then took flight and landed in some denser vegetation a bit further off: It was amazing how such a beautifully coloured goose can just disappear within a flock of Brents – either hidden by vegetation or just partially behind other geese. I walked round toward the shore and up on to the sand dune system where – with a bit more height – I could see it fully.
And then a rain storm came over, complete with rainbow, and I got rather wet!
I decided to head back to the car but then, when I was partway back the geese flew over again and landed at a similar distance from that when I had first arrived. I watched the red-breasted goose for a while longer and then headed back to the steps up from the beach…..but just as I got there the flock flew again and landed relatively close to the path! The light was fading quite quickly and my lens struggled to cope, but with a very high ISO of 6400 I managed some shots of the goose.
No new species for November 10th:
TOTALS TO DATE:
Birds = 227
Moths = 256
Wildflowers = 290