Wednesday, August 03, 2005

"Wild" goose chase scores a double. 186 species in total

A very long ride to north-east Hants today (and even over the county boundary into Berkshire at one point). First to be unblocked (after the totally plastic, ringed bird at Titchfield Haven) was Egyptian Goose - 19 of them looking completely unconvincing but as wild as Gyppos ever look on a small pond near Eversley Church. There were two more looking slightly less dubious at Eversley gravel pit, but no sign of the much harder Snow Goose there. I checked various nearby waters, and scanned various farming vistas, without luck, and was thinking about giving up, when two white blobs in flight near Hartley Wintney resolved themselves into Snow Geese! They carried on and then appeared to drop, out of sight, into some stubbly fields in the distance. I'm pretty unhappy about adding both these to the list, really, but they appear in the main section of the Hampshire Bird report, and that's the rules - so there! Also a Hobby and a Kingfisher at Eversley today. The ride home was long and tiring, and into a headwind - not much fun! Today's ride took me over both 3000km and 16km/species....