After leaving WWT Welney, I headed up to the Norfolk coast and Snettisham in particular. On Gower the best place to see over wintering birds is the North Gower coast over looking the Loughor Estuary, but it doesn’t get the numbers that are seen in Norfolk. Once again I was a bit early for the full bird count, but some Greylag geese were present and quite tame due to the Kings Lynn Angling Association having some fishing lakes on the way into the reserve. The presence of anglers allows the birds get used to human presence, and seem quite at home with people. During the day they would feed in the fields next to the reserve car park and then move into the reserve later on.
One of the reasons for my trip to Norfolk was to try and get the iconic image of? geese flying in V formation against a sunset. Not an original idea, I grant you , but one I wanted to record anyway. My trip was blessed with fine sunny weather, which resulted in slightly boring and unspectacular sunsets, so I never got the image I wanted!
I stayed on to try and see if the sky changed colour, but it still stayed blue in the areas the geese were flying in from. What amazed me was how tolerant they were of human presence and how close they fly to you. At the reserve you have to walk along the sea defences mainly, so you are quite visible from all directions. So no sneaking up close to anything then? Well no, as the birds are so used to seeing birdwatchers etc. they are used to benign humans being present. Not like one of my trips to North Gower where a wild fowling club have some shooting rights. I though things were a bit quiet one visit, so when returning back home I passed all the members with their shotguns who had been out before my arrival. Not surprisingly all the birds stayed well clear of that area for the whole day.
The above image was taken just before the sun set fully. It is a testament to how sensitive digital capture is and the detail it can capture.
