Fly Flatt/Mixenden., and the lonely goose story

 A bleak misty Fly Flatts

            A brief glimpse of the sun

                                             Not snow but heavy frost

  1 of 8 Mistle Thrush in the Plover field
           Cold Edge Rd

                                    Fieldfare and Mistle Thrush

 Not often you get chance to take local on the deck
                     Pink Footed goose photos. Mixenden

 This bird had got separated from the skein in
                         thick fog.

  It looked lost and sorry for itself

 Suddenly it heard the Canadas drifting  towards it.

                                 Off for a closer look

   A circular fly over to check them out

    Seem ok,  down to land

                A decent welcome

                      Centre of attraction

                 Happy ending, some mates to roost with before
      continuing its journey north.

Talk about luck, a day of thick fog up here on the tops until we were arriving home from Harden garden centre to find the fog lifting and even a bit of sun trying to show through. this only lasted a couple of hours before the fog dropped again but enough time for me to get a good birding session in.
1430 hrs and with the reports of Pinkies over I had planned to go to Mixenden below the fog hoping some had been forced down but as it was brightening I took a gamble on Fly Flatts looking for Pinks on the water or DJSs Goldies and Stonechats on which all 3 drew me a blank.
                                                               Fly Flatts was hazy but birdable , enough to scan the water, which had no sign of life , followed by a check around the Stonechat area with the same results.
The Goldie field on Cold Edge Rd failed on the target bird but held 8 Mistle Thrush and 5 Fieldfare, and that was it other than 2 Red Grouse.
                                                                Ironically a text from DJS reported a single Pink Footed goose being grounded at Mixenden where I had planned to go in the first place. I had to save the day so onward and upward to Mixenden with hopes that the Pinkie was still there.
A first scan of the water found 2 female Goldeneye, a few small gulls and 25 Canada geese but no Pinkie. A bit of mumbling under my breath then a second scan which found the goose on the east banking barely visible in the long grass. As I walked across to the banking it stood up and started to walk a bit closer to me so I squat down and waited slowly edging a little closer. After a few shots I started to leave it in peace in case it was exhausted and needed a rest but by this time the Canadas were drifting near to where it was which got the Pinkie up and calling then it set off down the banking to the waters edge where it took off, flew a circuit and landed slap bang in the middle of them.
It was pleasing to see them drifting on the water together and hopefully it will fly off to roost with them, possibly Ogden, before it heads off NW again to join up with the rest of the Pinkies.
Thanks for the text and update Dave.
BS