Sun and geese

In glorious warm, sunny autumn weather I went out east hoping there might be some congregations of geese and perhaps some Bearded Tits or raptors to find.

Kallaksjøen felt like I was at the WWT Welney Reserve because there were so many noisy wildfowl at close range. There were a good 1200 Greylags and amongst them 18 Pink-foot, 3 Canadas and two Tundra (rossicus) Bean Geese. 180 Teal had the company of a Pintail and there were 9 Whooper Swans. The video gives a bit of the feeling.

I found large flocks of Greylags at Hemnessjøen and Hellesjøvannet but they revealed no scarcer cousins in their ranks and the very extensive reedbeds at both these locations seemed to be Bearded free. Hellesjøvannet held very few ducks with for example not a single Goldeneye but 9 Pochard were at relatively close range.

Raptors were limited to just two Common Buzzards and I only had two Great Grey Shrikes.

Kallaksjøen WWT Reserve viewed from its luxury mobile hide 

Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) with Greylags

Two Tundra (rossicus) Bean Geese - note the orange bill

2 male and 2 female Pochards (taffeland) 

3 females and 4 males. The female on the right was a lot darker (sign of age?)