Red Breasted Goose

Myself and Dave Evans went up to Dumfries on Saturday 25th. Feb on a wild goose chase. We stopped off at Sizergh castle first and had rubbish views of several Hawfinch. Up in Scotland we had a look for the Ross's Goose at Caerlaverock WWT but failed. What a great reserve though. Fantastic to see so many wintering Barnacle Geese and the hides were all superb. We had good views of Whooper Swans, Pintail and Wigeon.

We then headed to Southerness point and spent hours staring at thousands of barnacle geese before locating the Red Breasted Goose. What a fabulous looking goose. We also saw a Red Kite. Overall we were impressed with the Solway Firth and its also pretty quick to get to so I'm sure we will be back again soon.

Gulls galore

I attended a gull masterclass run by Martin Garner yesterday at Stubber's Green near Walsall. Check out his superb web site Birding Frontiers. Its was great to be guided by such an enthusiastic guy who is clearly one of the world's gull experts. We got to grips with immature Argentatus Herring, Lesser black backed, and Great black backed gulls. We saw a fine first winter Yellow-legged gull showing some moulting wing coverts.

                                                                                                                                                                               

There was also a probable hybrid Caspian x Herring gull present.

We then went the short distance to Chasewater to view the roost. We picked up a second winter Iceland gull almost straight away. There was a further Iceland gull and a second winter Yellow-legged gull present.
All in all, it was an excellent educational day and I feel much more confident with immature gulls now

Raven

Whilst walking in Borrowdale I came across this very approachable corvid

Goldcrest

This is becoming a welcome regular visitor to the garden

Greenfield

Got out locally this lunctime in  the winter sunshine. Here are some photos from our garden and from Dovestone. It was nice to see some Bramblings at Binn Green feeders along with a few Siskin but nowhere near the numbers last year

Hawfinch

Dave Evans captured this Hawfinch at Sizergh castle yesterday. Well done sir