Chasing geese on the Sefton coast

The Richardson's cackling goose which was found on Banks Marsh by Stuart Darbyshire just over two months ago, could so far best be described as either elusive or distant. What a surprise then that it should turn up today on the saltmarsh at Marshside, 200m south west of the RSPB car park near the old sand plant, and show at a distance of little over 100m.

It rounded off a fabulous day of goose watching on the Sefton coast.

What a stunner this bird is! Somebody said to me that it was a good job that it was with pink-feet so that you could see how small the bird is because otherwise you might mistake it for a Canada goose! I can't agree with that, it's nothing like a Canada goose. Short necked, petite and with a tiny bill, it's just a beautiful bird, the highlight of this winters goosing for me.

When it first turned up in December I did wonder if it might be the bird from early 2021 which started out at Longton Marsh and then moved to Lightshaw Flash, however it's clearly not that bird, the white face is a different shape and it's paler breasted. It's probably a good job that it isn't that bird given that it ultimately ended up on the car park at Pennington Flash, albeit only for one day! This bird however has far better credentials and is more than likely a wild bird. For a comparison with the Longton marsh / Lightshaw / Pennington Flash bird click here (opens in a new window).  

Cackling goose being bullied by a pink-foot! The same video is on Vimeo here and may be better quality.

I started the day on Plex Moss where there was a snow goose with an impressive flock of 2500 pink-feet. This bird has been in the area even longer than the cackler but despite multiple attempts to see it, this was only the second time that I had connected. Plex Moss is the classic place to see snow geese in my opinion.

After Plex Moss I made my way to Banks Marsh and found that the pink-foot flocks were unusually close to the sea wall. There was a stiff breeze blowing but even so I managed to pick out four Russian white-fronts and five barnacle geese with about 5000 pink-feet.