Eastern Greylags at WWT Slimbridge, 21st February 2006, MJMcGill

Eastern Greylags at WWT Slimbridge 21st February 2006

The pair together on the Tack Piece scrape. We have never had genuine pink-billed birds with all of the structural features and behaviour. This pair were very hungry with the behaviour of newly arrived geese. On checking with Dave Paynter we have never seen the Eastern Greylag at Slimbridge. This accounts for decades of birding the site. The three 'continental' Greylags were feeding on the spartina island out in the estuary. This is common behaviour from the small numbers of shy, larger, paler Greylags that have wintered for the past 4-5 years. These particular birds are not the same as the two new arrivals or the wintering flock of 300-470 but provide a very interesting comparison nonetheless. We used to keep four Eastern Greylag in the collection around ten years ago which I was aviculturally responsible for and these two are identical. Very interesting that they arrived on the easterly. MJM.