Another look at the white-fronts at Lightshaw

First stop this morning was Lightshaw Flash to see if the Russian white-fronts were still present. I'm pleased to say that they were and since I now had my scope with me I was able to get a better look at them and attempt some video and hopefully get some better photos.

Yesterday I counted 27 birds but I was informed by another birder later in the evening that he had seen 30 so I took his word for it. This morning I could only get to 29 birds so I don't know if that was the actual figure yesterday or maybe one bird has left alone. 

Anyway, of the 29 I reckon that there was a minimum of four definite 1st winters and at least another three which were probable young birds. You can see birds in the photos with no white faces and they look smaller and younger, these are what I'm calling definite 1st winters. There are also birds with just a small amount of white but which still look like young birds to me. These are the probable 1st winters.

What a great sight this is! One of the difficulties in counting these birds is that they were mixed in with greylags and a single pink-footed goose. Obviously the greylags are a lot bigger but even so at distance they could confuse the issue.

Having said that, out of all of the white-fronts I have seen over the past week, this flock did stay together most of the time. The birds in North Lancs were scattered throughout the large pink-footed goose flocks. Perhaps they're more intimidated by the significantly larger greylags.

The great white egret in the background has a red ring and I think was ringed at Avalon marshes in Somerset.

This photo is a good example of how the greylags can affect the count. There's actually a greylag in amongst the white-fronts just right of the egret, but it's not particularly easy to see.

This looks like a family party to me, with the second right and extreme left birds being 1st winters.