Lincs or Essex

We were speaking to the ‘rellies’ in Australia today when the alert popped up. A red breasted Goose at Cley.

I’d been conscious of a couple of these arctic breeding geese being in both Essex and Lincolnshire this winter. I must admit as we were driving to Cley, shortly after hanging up the phone, I made the comment it was probably the Lincolnshire bird that had made the leap across The Wash. It wasn’t until I got to Cley friend Mark told us the Lincolnshire bird was still present. So this bird must have flown North from Essex.

These small colourful geese should be wintering around the Black Sea before returning to Arctic Russia. Occasionally they get wrapped up with other geese species and end up in the UK. The Cley bird was with a large flock of Dark bellied Brents and was quite obliging.