The Lincolnshire Bird Club

19 W F Geese in field adjacent to A158 road just outside Skegness this morning. Associating loosely with the local Canadas and Greylags.

A distant flock of geese in field off Sea Lane Wainfleet this afternoon numbered about 60. I counted 4 times and got 57, 58, 61 and 64. Although distant, most appeared to be Bean Geese!! I will go for better views tomorrow. Poor record shot to be posted in album.

2300 Brents Sea Lane, Friskney

Regards

Nige

62 Bean Geese present off Sea Lane, Wainfleet this am. Also 3 Pinkfeet

Single Barnacle Goose wih 430 Brents off Sea Lane, Friskney

Regards

Nige

Impressive. That must constitute the highest bean goose flock in the county for many years.

John

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Contact: recorder_south@lincsbirdclub.co.uk

Ady White and I each had a total of 71 Bean Geese along Sea Lane, Wainfleet. They are frequenting two fields about half way down. One is winter wheat and the other is a ploughed sugar beet field. We also had 5 Pink-feet with them. All of the Beans' appeared to be rossicus / Tundra's.
At times, when they were more distant (they were very wary and flew on several occasions) it was difficult to distinguish between pink and orange bare parts, but at closest range (c. 300m) there was a definite 71 Tundra's. Quite a few were mud-caked after slopping around in the beet field, with minimal orange to show on bill or feet. Whats the county total at present ? Must be >100 birds ? How many Taiga's ?

Phil, with Ady White later !

At 2.30pm this aft there were exactly 100 Bean Geese present. I am not familiar with Bean Geese but have been doing some research. I realise that the majority of Beans recorded in the UK so far have been labelled as Tundras.

Some of the birds present show a white rim to the bill base which, according to the "Advanced Bird ID Guide" is a particularly reliable feature enabling ID of Taiga (fabalis). Many of the birds also have a bill which is almost all orange, again indicative of Taiga. There is considerable overlap in ID features and breeding areas of the 5 known subspecies. Taiga and Tundra Beans regularly associate together on wintering grounds. Being unfamiliar with them, to my eyes some appeared to show characteristics which were a mix of either Tundra or Taiga Bean, ie, long necked with small amount of orange in bill or long necked with large amount of orange. I didnt notice any obvious size difference. As Phil mentions the birds are particularly wary and never closer than 200 to 300m. I would be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who is very familiar with Bean Geese.

As an aside, can I ask that anybody looking for the Geese doesnt stray from Sea Lane please. It is not possible to get any nearer to the birds anyway and some of us have a good relationship with landowners and farm managers in the area.

Ta

Nige (with Mark BIBBY for a short while)

Impressive stuff Nige. I thought that all the ones I saw this morning were Tundra, as even when colour features were obscured I always had the feel of a Pink-footed Goose "jizz" and shape. I didn't see any which looked longer necked and beefy as Taiga's tend to. However, as you had an extra 25, perhaps these were Taiga, or at least some. Did you see any today which you didn't see with the original 63 or 64 you originally reported ? It wasn't easy at times to observe all features as many birds were up for only a short time before sitting down, head under wing, in a very strong wind,

Phil

Sea Lane this morning. Met Grahame Hopwood. Both parked by the roadside. We were spoken to by a representative of the police who asked us why we were there. He confirmed that all tracks are private. In the next hour or so at least 3 cars went down the track nearest to the geese. Meanwhile we saw 54 geese perfectly well from the road. For what it's worth we thought they were all Tundra. Cheers. Rick

Rick,
The local farm worker who lives on the corner of Sea Lane and the left-hand (N) turn to Hodson's Yard (private road) told me that one of his co-workers disturbed a white van crew (8 people) the Saturday before last who had turned dogs loose hoping to flush deer from one of the copses along there. Not people to be messed with I guess, hence the police presence ?

Phil