Barnacle Geese

I have only ever seen one Barnacle Goose before, a somewhat dubious individual that was frequenting Deeping High Bank last year. I 'ticked' it anyway, but always hankered after a truly 'wild' bird. That hankering was achieved with a trip to Caerlaverock WWT close to Dumfries, there were thousands of them, possibly as many as 20,000!

The area in question is well known for these geese in the winter months where they spend their time feeding on the surrounding fields and marshland in preparation for their journey back to Spitsbergen. An amazing sight and sound as these geese took to the skies in unison as they came to roost close by.

A lone individual

As ever, click on the photos for a larger picture, the flock photos look 'better' the larger they are.

Nuthatch

On arrival at our cottage we both noticed some feeders in the front garden with a couple of bits of stale bread in them, but still being visited by a couple of Blue Tits. We managed to get hold of some peanuts and half coconuts filled with fat to see if we could entice some more birds to visit, I even managed to fix a more natural perch in the form of an old tree branch close to the feeders in the hope of a bird landing there before using the feeders. In the morning the feeders were full of 3 species of Tit, Coal, Blue and Great, all happily feeding away until the arrival of a Nuthatch which caused all the other birds to disappear. He wouldn't sit on that blessed tree branch though, so I am afraid you are stuck with these 'unnatural' looking shots.