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Whitefronts and Beans


scolopax
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8 hours ago, scolopax said:

The various reserves locally are starting to report a handful of Whitefronts and Beans here and there. Anyone seeing them in any numbers elsewhere? 

Small family party's been reported since mid October and definitely picking up momentum now. 50 in a regular haunt in Norfolk and last Tuesday when i was as about to climb and pollard a tree a 9 then 30 Bewick's followed by 52 Whitefront flew direct overhead heading towards Welney.

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12 hours ago, scolopax said:

Seems to be quite a few Whitefronts around in the least couple of weeks. Not hundreds in my county but two dozen here, ten there kind of numbers. Far more than the usual 0 we have anyway.

15 days left for those that come across one below the mean high water mark, then.

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On 05/02/2025 at 09:37, Pushandpull said:

A small flock of Lesser Whitefronts has been here and there on the East Coast and they are currently in North Norfolk. Be very careful out there.

Same with Bean Geese P+P , hard enough for people to tell the difference in good light let alone a dark night with rain or sleet blowing in your face , although the chances anyone coming across any outside our county would be very slim indeed  . MM

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9 hours ago, Pushandpull said:

As far as I know, the only Bean Geese which winter in numbers are now the ones in Scotland (Slammanan). The Swedish Lesser Whitefronts are still about.

There used to be a regular small flock of Taiga Bean Geese on the Buckenham marshes near Norwich ,maybe still are , to make identifying them that much harder they were sometimes joined by there sister geese the Tundra Bean Goose , bagging one of them would be rarer than winning the major prize on the lottery .    MM

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1 hour ago, marsh man said:

There used to be a regular small flock of Taiga Bean Geese on the Buckenham marshes near Norwich ,maybe still are , to make identifying them that much harder they were sometimes joined by there sister geese the Tundra Bean Goose , bagging one of them would be rarer than winning the major prize on the lottery .    MM

A friend of mine shot a Bean goose on Holbeach Marsh around 1969/70.

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37 minutes ago, London Best said:

A friend of mine shot a Bean goose on Holbeach Marsh around 1969/70.

I know two people who have shot Bean geese , purely by mistake of course , me and my mate who is long gone now had a smallish wildfowl collection made up with wing tipped duck , he even added a White Front that he shot , this had the Black bars on its chest when he shot it and he had that allotment for 18 years so that ole goose was over 20 years old , it had a bit of a limp but got about alright and part of the dyke was fenced off so they could all have a swim and preen up a bit

On the wooden door frame he had nailed the head of a Bean goose , all we knew in those days was it was a Bean Goose and not a Tundra or a Taiga , the other person is myself , to us a goose was a goose and perfectly shoot'able , we didn't have the huge amount of Pinks then like we have got now and for many years the White Fronts outnumbered the Pinks , in a local bird book I have got the peak numbers of White Fronts were around 5,000 , now it's not unusual to have around 15,000 Pinks down here , so anyone getting a Bean Goose would have to be very unlucky depending how you look at it .   MM

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