haiku and birds

frosty grass -
Greenland white fronted geese
fly in from the north

***
Over the past week or so, geese have been turning up at Musselburgh Lagoons that don't normally visit. At one point there were apparently 50 barnacle geese (though there are only 11 left now) and they have more recently been joined by about five Greenland white fronted geese.  As you can see from the maps (if you follow the links in red) these birds are well outside their normal wintering grounds. Lovely to see them. Also four snipe, which are often around the Lagoons, but very elusive. Meanwhile I got my closest ever views of the fabulously weird looking velvet scoters and spent a few minutes watching a group of six of them diving in the incoming tide. There were at least 20 of them scattered around the water just near the John Muir Walkway. Then the storm clouds began to move in rapidly from Fife and I speeded up to avoid getting caught in the downpour, but in the end the storm bypassed Musselburgh entirely.

as ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.