Local Surprise!

My aim of the day was to see a very debatable Blue Morph Snow Goose which has recently appeared at one of my local patches, Moor Green Lakes. The bird is almost certainly feral (judging by the fact it associates with feral Barnacle Geese and the area once had a feral population of 20 Snow Geese) although there has been no Blue Morph bird sighted in the area for several years. This led me to believe that this bird is likely to have come from another collection, but I still thought it was worth a look. The bird has been sighted in the Dell Field on the New Workings but today, it was nowhere to be seen. While looking for the bird another birder kindly informed us he had just been watching a Bittern from the Grove Lake hide. Those of you who know the area will know these birds are very scarce indeed locally and this bird is likely to have departed by tomorrow, proving birding is all down to luck!!


Unsurprisingly we headed straight down to Grove Lake where within ten minutes we caught sight of the Bittern. We then watched the bird for around 90 minutes foraging on the open ice. The bird was very distant (around 200-300 metres) but was certainly a showy individual. It was while watching the Bittern we got a brief glimpse of the Snow Goose. The flock of Geese flew past but unfortunately landed in the fields to the north of the lake.


We had only around an hour left so decided to go and look at Colebrook North Lake. The entire lake was frozen apart from a small patch where all of the birds were congregating. There were large numbers of Wigeon and Gadwall, along with 3 Teal and 1 Drake Goosander. There was also a strange hybrid asleep. On the way back we stopped off at the fields we thought the geese had landed in, and sure enough there were 15 Barnacle Geese with the Blue Morph Snow Goose amongst them. 

Bittern

Bittern

Bittern

Blue Morph Snow Goose

Blue Morph Snow Goose