Well, maybe not quite a million but a pre-Xmas visit to the Washes was certainly spectacular in terms of the wall to wall throng of birds across large stretches of the floods. I made no effort at all to be systematic in looking for waifs and strays and decided to allow the scale of the spectacle to impress upon me over and over. At Welches Dam, Whooper Swans moved backwards and forwards from the floods to fields, hoardes of Wigeon whistled and Teal jumped into the air in their thousands. A huge Peregrine kept things lively marauding over the flocks and sending them into panic stricken chaos. A 50 strong flock of Barnacle were the first of an interesting run of Geese.
At Welney the massed birds continued to impress with Golden Plover and Black-tailed Godwit joining the swirls. A posse of wild geese swinging in from the south and then back again proved to be White-fronts. Once they landed we kept finding new birds and the highest tally was 14 of these lovely winter geese. Later 5 Bean Geese flew north, we followed them to no avail only to find them hunkered down with the Greylags on our return to the observatory.
Distantly we could see a White Stork away across the floods, we decided to have a closer look if possible on our way to Four Balls Farm. The Stork was very confiding and flashed us it's subtle red plastic ring, still it reminded us of trips abroad and was a handsome bird to enjoy.
There was not a sufficient depth of water at Four Balls to attract any diving duck but a larger group of 50 or so White-fronts flew up the Washes and then downed on fields the other side of the westerly bank. Pymore added nothing new and we decided to head home as the light was now fading fast on a cracking day out.
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