Thursday 25 March 2010

Baiter in the rain

I have spent many hours carefully stalking Brent Geese and Turnstones along the shore at Baiter Park in Poole and never really been happy with the photographic results. Although the birds will let joggers and cyclists pass without batting an eye-lid, as soon as you stop to study them they become more wary. Not today though, perhaps because the drizzle just made it too miserable to move. The Brent Goose in this picture appears to have a red colour-ring on its right leg, though no number was visible. I couldn't see the if the left leg was ringed, and having googled 'colour-ringed Brent Geese' I am none the wiser as to its origin. There is such an array of colour-ringing schemes in practice now that a European website has been set up to co-ordinate them. It's motto, 'from the trouble of the world, we turn to birds', strikes a chord.