An Hour on the Beach

Last weekend we spent an hour or so on the beach at Landguard, in the lee of the port of Felixstowe. There were one of two gulls on the shoreline and cormorants and geese overhead.

Port to the left, bird observatory to right, and protected nature zone (where we see butterflies) in the foreground

 

I was interested to see the red ring on this gull, and it was a shame I failed to photograph the rest of the label. A lot of bird ringing is done at the bird observatory. There is a blackboard on the fence listing recent sightings, which is always good to see.

 

Sunset on the boardwalk, looking towards Harwich

 

Canada Goose with Orange Band, Pakenham Mill

We visited Pakenham Watermill for the first time on Saturday. It lies just across the road from Mickle Mere, a reserve in the care of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. We headed off to the hide, and enjoyed watching the nesting gulls and the young Moorhens and Coots. There were a few geese about - Egyptian, Greylag and Canada. The Canada Geese were a fair distance from the hide, so the photo above was taken on my zoom and has been enlarged. I apologise for the poor quality, particularly since it would have been interesting and helpful to have been able to have read the ringing ID on the orange collar.    

My understanding is that the significant details to record if you spot a neck band on a goose are ...

• the species, in this case Canada Goose
• the colour of the neck band
• the numbers or letters on it
• the colour of the numbers

Sightings of banded birds can be sent to www.ring.ac (here) which is a website run by BTO on behalf of the European Ringing Schemes.

You can read about the Cotswold Water Park banding research project here.

There were some strange leafy 'creatures' lurking in the meadow near the mill stream!