Another few days at Martin Mere

It's not unusual for me to abandon Pennington Flash at this time of year and overdose on Martin Mere, I've done it every year for at least the past three. There's just so much happening here in January, especially now that we have the excitement at the sewage works.

However, yesterday it was the more traditional sighting of this juvenile male hen harrier from the Ron Barker hide that stole the show.

I've been watching hen harriers here almost since my first visit in 1974, and it's a sighting that my Dad would have been very familiar with.

Nearby there was a brambling and a roosting barn owl.

The real reason I keep being drawn back day after day is to see the Siberian chiffchaffs tristis at the sewage works. They really are cracking birds, though not showing as well so far this year as they did in previous years I think. There are several normal collybita chiffchaffs present as well, some of which are very obvious, others which are somewhere in between collybita and tristis and they can cause a problem if they don't call. When you see the Siberian version it is pretty obvious, looking very washed out with not a sign of any yellow in the supercillium or on the underparts.

I have much better photos from previous years of Siberian chiffchaffs at Martin Mere, click here and it will open in a new window.

The red-breasted goose is still on the mere with all of the other wild birds.

This goose looks like a leucistic greylag to me rather than a greylag with domestic genes.

I'm not quite sure yet what to make of this goose which is in the collection with the Ross's goose flock. It looks very like a Ross's goose in structure. Like snow goose, Ross's goose has a blue phase, and perhaps this is part way to that, but blue phase Ross's goose is so rare as to be almost a mythical bird, and some authorities consider blue phase to actually be evidence of snow goose genes rather than pure Ross's. I need to look into it more, but there is a really interesting article here on the subject.

Emperor x Ross's seems possible, but when it comes to wildfowl hybrids, things that look obvious usually aren't in my experience.