Brief encounter with a yank at Banks

I spent another day trying to get a better view of the Richardson's cackling goose at Banks but there was no sign today. It's probably still in the area but so many geese are way out on the saltmarsh, well out of scope range even at 60x. Still, it was a good day with two short-eared owls, three merlin, four peregrine and two great white egrets, plus all of the usual waders and wildfowl. 

I must have walked several miles back and forth along the sea bank. It was a generally dull and at times murky day, which was part of the problem when searching for the cackler, but in the morning there was a little sunshine and during one such period I saw three golden plover flying towards me. They flew right over my head and then banked away and turned back over the marsh and far away. As they turned the sun caught their underwings and I was delighted to see that one of the birds clearly had a grey underwing and axillaries which contrasted nicely with the much whiter underwings of the European golden plover. It was either an American or Pacific golden plover, with the former much more likely and in fact there have been a couple of sightings on the Ribble earlier in the autumn. 

Unfortunately I was unable to get a decent photo of the bird. The photo above is the yank and the photo below is the European. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the birds in the same photo, however both photos have been lightened to the same amount and you can clearly see how much the white stands out on the European bird.