Todd's Canada Goose, Banks Marsh (again)

Another great walk at Banks Marsh with lots of interest. A male hen harrier hunted the extreme north eastern end of the marsh close to the southern most bank of Hesketh Out Marsh, and at least two marsh harriers and an adult peregrine were in the same area. There are still thousands of wigeon on the marsh and they are often disturbed by marauding great black back gulls, while goosander and red-breasted merganser were less expected. With high tide just after midday waders were well represented with several grey plover and lots of knot and dunlin as well as the usual redshank and lapwings. A flock of about 30 twite was up and down the bank.

Two or three thousand geese are still at Banks but most are out of view through a combination of extreme distance and tall vegetation. I did manage to once again pick out the dark Todd's Canada goose but again at long distance. Fortunately though it does stand out as significantly darker than the pink-feet it associates with and even when it has it's back to me I can pick it out. In the photos on this post you can see that it is smaller and much darker than the nearby feral Canada's.

I travelled to Banks via Plex Moss and Southport where there were hundreds of geese visible from Marine drive but I couldn't pick out anything unusual. Many more were hidden though in the long grass of the outer marsh. I only knew that they were there because every now and then they would fly up briefly, but then drop down again out of view.

The Todd's Canada goose (second bird from the left) doesn't really associate with the feral Canada's but there are hundreds of the latter on the saltmarsh and obviously their paths cross every now and then. When they do the differences are obvious, the Todd's is smaller, darker (especially on the breast) and shorter necked, but also the white face is not so white, it's more dusky white.

This wonderful drake red-breasted merganser is presumably the same bird that I saw here a month ago. Also in the same area there was a female goosander.