Whooper Swans over Beeley Moor

I've been lucky enough to see several decent movements of Pink-footed Geese this autumn, which is always something I luck forward to. In fact the only sight and sound that beats them is wild swans, and today I had a fantastic view of 16 Whooper Swans which came directly over my head against the blue sky. 

There were several parties seen elsewhere in the country so it was clearly a day that suited the swans for migration. No juveniles with this group but hopefully they have had a decent breeding season in Iceland and Scandinavia.

Whooper Swans

Redwing and Brambling arrival at Beeley Moor

 I had a message from a friend this morning that Redwings were arriving on the east coast. A little later another message from just south of York reported over 3000 birds heading west.

I went up on to Beeley Moor facing east and waited patiently whilst scanning the horizon. Just after 11:00 the first group of 70 birds crossed the moor followed by several flocks of 40 to 50 birds. By mid-day I had counted 480 birds arriving from the east. Whilst watching for the Redwing 4 Brambling landed in the trees close to where I was stood and at least 15 Lesser Redpoll followed the Redwings heading west.

Hopefully we'll see more in the coming days

Redwing crossing a grey sky

Brambling feeding briefly before continuing west

Big Goose Day!

 Most autumns we get one or two days with decent movements of Pink-footed Geese over Beeley Moor. This year I thought they might have missed us when on 24th September there was a large southerly movement down the east coast with over 12,000 counted passing Spurn Point but today we counted over 1,000 birds mainly heading east and most skeins crossing the moors north of Beeley. 

That this was part of a larger movement was confirmed with 3700 counted over Longdendale, in the north of the county, and over 7,000 counted heading east over Wintersett in West Yorkshire.

Pink-footed Geese, 9 in the top photo, 65 in the middle and 229 in the bottom

Traditionally birds passing over Beeley are coming from the NE (Southport area) and heading SE towards the Wash, but for the last couple of years they are more frequently heading east towards the Lincolnshire and perhaps the Humber as the West Yorkshire birds would be doing.

A satellite tagged bird nicely shows this route and why the passage was mainly to the north of us.

Route of a recent GPS tagged Pink-footed Goose