The latest data up to 10pm last night (Monday 27th October) shows that Nethy is still hanging around in the area of Lac de Guiers, where it is obviously to her liking, she's just making short fishing sorties along the lake-edge in search of food.
Nethy no-doubt awoke this morning to sunshine and warmth, which is more than could be said for us here at Loch Garten. We awoke to a skiff of snow covering the ground completely. Hardly deep & crisp & even (yet) but it was white-over at valley level and the mountains have much more now than the previously reported dusting of icing sugar. Snow flurries punctuate the day so far and heavier falls are forecast tonight, a blizzard infact. Nethy's well out of it, I tell you.
With little to report on Nethy's movements, a few wider words from Loch Garten. I went to the loch late afternoon yesterday, just to check what indeed was coming into roost, ahead of our scheduled goose roost-watch next Sunday. On arrival, c.150 gulls, a mixture of Herring & Greater Black-backed, were already there, but as I waited in the grey-dark, birds began to arrive. The fourteeen whoopers reported yesterday are now nineteen. I heard them coming in but couldn't see them, their white plumage making them invisible against the leaden, snow-laden skyscape. Only when I heard the whooooooosh of them sliding onto the loch's surface could I make them out in the 'scope, just. After the gales of late, it was dead calm last night which made a change and as darkness fell, I had to rely on sound to know what was going on out there. The swans called to each other softly, to a background of raucous quacking of mallards. I could pick out the piping calls of teal too and the whistles of wigeon. Over my head, in the dark I could hear the rapid descending rush of others arriving, the whirring of goldeneye in flight and the grumpy grunts of goosander. Couldn't see 'em though. A few greylag geese came in, by now under cover of darkness, and I heard what I thought was a white-fronted goose too. Not a call I'm that familair with but it just sounded different. Apparently a few white-fronts were reported amongst the 1000+ greylags that arrived in the area at the weekend. I returned to the loch this morning at first light in the hope of clinching what it was, but all birds were up and gone by the time I arrived, bah! Och well, I'll take another look tomorrow.
Richard