24th December

An unexpectedly exciting day with a blasting and increasingly cold easterly the prompt for a flurry of waterfowl, wader and gull movement. Lapwings and Lesser Black-backed Gulls made up the bulk of the numbers, with Lapwings nearly topping 100 and Lesser Black-backs probably not far short of that - 50 of the latter arrived from the south in an hour at the Bill, with the movement ongoing but unquantified after this. Wildfowl included 7 Pintail, 5 Wigeon and a Teal through at Ferrybridge and 4 grey geese, 2 each of Shoveler and Wigeon, and a lone Brent Goose through off the Bill. Four Red-throated Divers also passed by off the Bill and the Grey Plover tally at Ferrybridge increased to 4.

It was exciting to see Lapwings © Pete Saunders and Lesser Black-backs © Martin Cade suddenly on the move:

With a nice selection of waterfowl as a bonus; Pintails, Wigeon and Teal © Pete Saunders...

...and Shovelers © Martin Cade:

Unfortunately, the grey geese through off the Bill were a lot more frustrating since they were miles out and in terrible light; we had suspicions there were two species involved - three big birds and one smaller one - but the photos really don't help in resolving much detail © Martin Cade:

In fact it was a frustrating day all round on the goose front since in the afternoon we popped over to Lodmoor to see if the reported Bean Geese were on view. There was no sign of them but just as we arrived we caught sight of a flock of grey geese disappearing high over the east end of the reserve; the views were again terrible - miles away and constantly tail-end on as they headed off towards the Purbecks - but the light was much better and some of the photos revealed dark bars underneath and white forehead blazes to confirm that most if not all were White-fronts © Martin Cade: