Reports of a Pink-footed goose [PFG] on The Scrape at Sandwich Bay tempted me, I'd not knowingly seen and had certainly never photographed one before so I headed there to take a look.
The Scrape can be very good especially for photography, the hide is near to the water compared at least to hides at places like Pegwell Bay and Oare. There is nearly always something to point the camera at. During the winter months it is mainly Teal, Gadwall, and Tufted duck, Greylag geese and lesser numbers of other ducks together with Little grebe, Moorhen and Coot. However, if you are there long enough just about anything can drop in, as was the case for me.
Having been unable to resist taking what were only ever going to be poor shots of species I'd already got - mainly because they wouldn't swim near the hide, an Egyptian goose landed on the water close to what is showing of the island. It swam around for a few minutes, climbed out onto the island to preen then took off.
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| Egyptian goose |
It only remained for about 15 minutes so if you weren't there at that time you would have no idea it had been there, so very much a case of 'right place, right time'. I'd photographed these before at the Cotswold Water Park but not in Kent, so that was a County photo tick for me. The Pink-footed goose didn't appear however so I'd have to try another time. A pair of Gadwall drifted past the hide and the 'resident' Pochard went for a little paddle but wouldn't venture very near.
Gaddwall ♀ left and ♂ right, Pochard ♂
I wasn't able to return until the weekend and I made the effort to get there early which was worthwhile but the light was poor. The 3 Goosander which have been hanging around now for nearly 3 months were all visible and for a change, active. They did a lot of swimming around and preening but most of my early morning shots were poor - too little light and lots of blurred images. Several Greylag geese were swimming around but I couldn't see the PFG, then, with much honking a small flock of ~15 geese flew in and one was the PFG. Again, the early photos I took were poor, it remained quite distant and was often partly obscured by the Greylags, I did get one record shot as it stood on the bank on the far side of the Scrape, the difference in bill colour is quite obvious here but when the birds are swimming around it can be very difficult to pick out the PFG, especially if it is facing away from you.
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| Pink-footed goose and 3 Greylag ~70 m from the hide. |
The sun did eventually come out and after another period of rest, the Goosanders went for another swim around. I returned the following day in glorious sunshine and basically had a repeat performance with the PFG coming in around 11:30 and the Goosanders (now 4) putting on a good display, the photos below are a mixture from the two days.
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| Pink-footed goose - my 19th new photo tick since November |
I managed to get some close shots of the Tufted duck, always difficult as the contrast between the white belly and flank and the black of the back plays havoc with the exposure - under expose for the white or over expose for the black? Anyway, the results can be seen on my Flickr page along with larger images of the birds mentioned here.
Tufted duck and other Scrape photos backwards from this photo.
Just before I departed, a Lapwing landed on the grass immediately in front of the hide, I took half a dozen shots before it flew off and an Oystercatcher took its place.
I also got some nice shots of Shoveler, Little grebe and a Coot which can been seen on the Flickr site, link above.
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