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| Greenland white-front with pink-footed geese Photo © John Tymon. |
Yesterday John Tymon found a magnificent Greenland white-fronted goose just south of Culcheth on Holcroft Moss. Unlike the first COVID lockdown when I was out every day and the weather was great, this time around I've found it very difficult to motivate myself, what with the bad weather and short days and I've managed to resist a whole host of rarities from Siberian thrush to rufous scrub-robin. However nothing gets the Davies pulse racing like a goose just before Christmas and sure enough I was out today looking for this bird. Armed with information from John I headed for Holcroft Lane and found a flock of about 450 pink-footed geese near Frank's farm. Unfortunately though, most of the flock was in a dip in the field and invisible to me. After about half an hour though I managed to pick out the white-front but almost immediately a farm vehicle drove down a track and flushed the lot!
Actually it wasn't too bad, they flew off east, way over towards Little Woolden Moss before returning to land in roughly the same area, but not before flying through Greater Manchester airspace and becoming a new addition to my GM list (if I kept one!). While they were flying, a female pintail flew up and briefly joined them before dropping down again.
My database tells me that I saw 10 Russian white-fronted geese at Pennington Flash on 27th November 1993, however I have absolutely no recollection of them. The county report for 1993 says they roosted from 21st November to 1st December, with one Pink-Footed Goose and fed somewhere nearby.
The flock heading for Greater Manchester!
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