Pinkies on the move

I paid my first visit of the year to Girton Pits this morning. Generally things were pretty quite, although there was a Green Sand on the North Pit, and about 10 Tree Sparrows and 3 Bullfinches were in with a flock of Reed Bunts feeding in the winter beet field at the intersection of Trent Lane and Green Lane - there were also good numbers of Fieldfare and Redwing in this area.

At the far end of Trent Lane at the fisherman's carpark I scanned the Holmes on the opposite side of the river for geese, instead finding 3 Whooper Swans to the south of Smithy Marsh. I decided to drive round to Besthorpe NWT (North) to get a better look at them, although by the time I got there they'd moved onto the Trent; this did mean I also came across a nice group of 8 Goosander (3 drakes and 7 redheads) which I wouldn't otherwise have seen.


Whooper Swans (with three of the 8 Goosander behind) on R. Trent at Besthorpe NWT (North)

At the same time, 35 Pink-footed Geese passed overhead, battling into the westerly wind, and another larger group appeared to land back towards where I'd just come from; I retraced my steps back to Girton and down Trent Lane, and a quick check of Grassthorpe Holme produced a group of c.120 Pinkies - the most I've ever seen on the ground in Notts, and in the exact same spot where I had 13 Eurasian White-fronts in mid November.

Pink-footed Geese on Grassthorpe Holme