Greylags at Sprinkle Pill

Yesterday evening at dusk we looked across at Sprinkle Pill from Landshipping with a telescope and counted not less than 174 greylags roosting on the mud, there were only small number of Canada geese present at the time (less than 20).

Other waterfowl included species typical of the area at this time of year including a small number of shelduck, curlew, oystercatchers and redshank, 3 little egrets, 150-200 teal, 350 black-headed gulls, 120 lesser black-backed gulls and at least 120 carrion crows were also present along the shore.

Only 6 greylags were recorded by WeBs counters along the entire Cleddau Estuary system in September and last year's maximum for the whole county was only 41 in November (and up until now 40 in February 2012). So we assume that these birds have recently arrived here from somewhere else (Carmarthenshire perhaps?). However, they may also be arriving at the estuary close to dusk from inland fields. Could such a large concentration of geese have been missed?