It's that time of year when we play host to hundreds of geese and ducks all carrying out their summer moult after they've finished raising their young. Wildfowl lose all their wing feathers at once during the moult, and become temporarily flightless. As they are vulnerable to predators at this time, they tend to congregate in safe places, like our nature reserve, and stick together in large flocks for protection until they can fly again and leave us once more. Last week, David, one of our volunteers, counted 368 Canada geese, and we have around 60-70 scruffy-looking moulting mallards and 7 greylag geese here too. If you look carefully at the Canada Geese, you can see that most of them are missing their main wing feathers, and some of them are "in pin" - the new feathers are growing back in, and are protected whilst they're growing with a bluish covering which looks like a feather shaft. See if you can spot them! Whilst they're flightless, the geese have to walk, rather than fly, between the lagoons and the estuary to feed. They all come out of the Deep Lagoon at the same place, where there is a small beach, then up over the bank and on to the salt marsh. Whilst you're walking along the Estuary Path, you'll be able to spot this area, between the Foel Fras Screen and Benarth Hide, as a nice neat lawn of grass and bird's foot-trefoil, in contrast to the much ranker areas of long grass and bramble surrounding it. Amazing what the trampling of hundreds of goose feet can do in just a few weeks a year!
There's a few young still out and about on the reserve. Our single lapwing chick appears to have fledged this week, and we have a family of common sandpipers on the Afon Ganol (you'll hear the adults from a long way away, as they are calling constantly!). A brood of tufted duck ducklings and a moorhen chick appeared this week too, and the 2 great crested grebe chicks are now swimming strongly alongside their parents.
Wader numbers continue to build and Glyn, our Wildlife Guide, spotted a green sandpiper on 24 June. A grey wagtail was on the Afon Ganol on 26 June, adding a welcome splash of colour to a rainy week!
Green sandpiper