This record seemed rather odd in location and the fact that GWF is such a rare bird in Lincolnshire but it seems that the persistent westerly gales in the North Atlantic in recent weeks may have produced a major displacement of GWF as well as Whooper Swans; picked this up from Bird Forum (apologies if i stole it)
suspect these birds are shifting east as the winds have been unfavourable for them to reach Ireland/Britain so far. Same thing is happening with the Icelandic Whooper Swans and Greenland White-fronted Geese.
Only c2,000 of 8,000 of the latter have arrived at Wexford Wildfowl Reserve so far this autumn and these have been tracked flying east to western Norway, moving south and then returning back to Ireland.
Clearly there has been a massive drift of Whooper Swans to the East coast and beyond? with exceptional movements south at Spurn and good numbers past Gib, where there are far fewer observers, and these GWF were presumably part of the drift.
a single adult GWF dropped in at Alkborough on Saturday afternoon with 13 Greylags; it is impossible to know where Greylags come from when you have 1500 birds locally but the fact that the Marston birds are also with Greylags may hint? at them being of Icelandic origin or maybe the GWF are used to seeing Greylags and don't know the difference between ferals and wild birds. The Alkborough bird is also an adult the leat likely age group to be drifted on migration so the weather must have been pretty severe. Apart from a party of 6 adult GWF that spent 2 months on the upper Humber in Jan - feb 2012 al of the recent records up here have been of first-winetr birds with Pink-feet.
Clearly worth checking any flocks of local geese as these birds seem to be joining up with anything that looks like a compatriot.
images of the Alkborough bird here
http://pewit.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/gre ... goose.html
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