Icelandic Visitors

It had been many weeks since I had visited the Pilling area of Lancs.I made a couple of trips to the area recently to catch up on the birdlife.As expected a number of pink footed geese and whooper swans had arrived from their Icelandic breeding grounds.The Pilling area is a traditional winter haunt for swans and geese and a drive around the lanes will guarantee finding flocks feeding on the fields

A favourite food is the leftover potatoes.The swans in particular seem to make for the fields with unharvested potatoes close to or just under the soil.In the images below the whoopers can be seen enjoying the leftovers.A number of juvenile swans were with the adults and were learning the best areas for food.The geese mostly seem to enjoy grazing the grass.It was nice to see these visitors from Iceland back in Lancs.Also evident were numbers of curlews,a declining species but still in good numbers here in winter.Shown below my better efforts with the camera with the swans,geese and curlews.Thanks for looking in and my next posting will be of the red deer rut in Lakeland.