Wednesday 11th February

See yesterday's forecast, but with more rain in the morning.

Today's sightings were all of wildfowl, which makes a change from raptors! Nick Parsons found the 3 Ring-necked Ducks on Loch nan Cadhan again and also saw what was presumably the same adult Light-bellied Brent as yesterday, this time in a Barnacle Goose flock just outside Bridgend, beside the Ballygrant road. At lunchtime, Fiona McG. reported a flock of 10 Pink-footed Geese at Sunderland, while later on Nick Parsons saw 4 in a flock of Greenland White-fronted Geese at Kintra. While ones and twos of Pinkfeet are regular among the wintering goose flocks, small flocks like this are usually only seen in autumn and spring, so these seem likely to be fairly recent arrivals. Perhaps the persistent east winds had something to do with it. Finally, David Jardine found the Chinese Goose in a flock of Greylags at Port Charlotte. It was present in the autumn, disappeared for a while, and then turned up again a week or two ago. One wonders in which farmyard it presumably lives in between its flights out to feed with its friends.

Craig Calladine took this long-distance photograph of the 3 Ring-necked Ducks on Loch nan Cadhan, a pair plus a second female.