Snow Geese.

No photographs of Snow Geese but this is the frozen Aldcliffe Marsh looking NW towards the Golden Ball at Snatchems in the background during the recent ice-age where four have been located since 27 February having previously been on Carnforth Marsh for a 'few' week's always in the company of Greylags - of which I counted at least 550 on 29 December on Aldcliffe Marsh - and which is precisely what they continue to do here.

There seem to be no records of any Snow Geese in GB that are unquestionably of wild origin, such confirmation can only be through the occurrence of a ringed bird. However, that any have ever occurred in Europe was confirmed by an adult observed in the Netherlands in April 1980, this bird was bearing a blue and a metal ring which transpired to have been the very combination used on male goslings by a research team in Manitoba, Canada three years earlier in 1977.

The first record of Lesser Snow Goose to be widely accepted involved two blue phase birds found in January 1946 in Co Wexford, Ireland, the were claimed by the two observers to look like Greylags with abnormal head markings, the birds were not seen again until three months later back at the same location. By the time these two birds had departed a few observers collectively agreed the likelihood was that they were of wild origin.

                                             

And I did find an image of a Snow Goose with my thanks to Paul Baker in BC Canada......thanks Paul.

A kindly offer to transport dear Kathleen to Sainsburys - not for the first time - paid of handsomely with good views of an adult Mediterranean Gull with c.60 mainly Black-headed Gulls just upstream from the Greyhound Bridge behind the store.