Penny cackler

Well the inevitable has happened, the Richardson's cackling goose turned up today at Pennington Flash with the Canada goose flock. Initially this morning it clung onto some credibility by staying down at the Slag lane end, but by this afternoon it had succumbed to temptation and moved onto the main car park with it's larger cousins. This is still the same bird as that seen on the Ribble estuary in January and there's still the remote possibility that it arrived with pink-feet and then joined up with feral Canada geese and is just moving around with them, but eating grain on the main car park at Pennington Flash is never a good sign.

It's credibility rating goes something like this, when it was on the Ribble there was 30% chance it was wild, at Lightshaw 10% chance, at the Slag lane end 5% chance, eating grain on the car park 1% chance. The only hope now is that somebody can get a feather and we can send it away for DNA analysis which will prove it's origins either way. I suppose it could also fly to Norfolk which would push it's credibility up to 100%!

What a smart bird though, I love these cacklers. So cute and dainty compared to their larger  and uncouth cousins.

However, wild birds do sometimes become very tame. Hogganfield Loch is in the middle of a large conurbation in the suburbs of Glasgow and is a very busy place. It was packed when I was there on 8th February (see next post) and I was amazed to see around 20 whooper swans coming to bread on the car park. So don't dismiss the goose just because it seems quite tame. How long it stays might be more relevant.