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24 January 2025 Lesser Y-fronts

I have seen very few Lesser White-fronted Geese (nicknamed 'Lesser Y-fronts' in our student days). One in a Greater White-fronted Goose flock on Sheppey in the early 1990s, and a couple with Pink-feet in Norfolk, one of which was tainted by spending the summer with Greylags in God's Own County. There has been another adult Lesser White-fronted Goose of unknown origin with Pink-feet in Norfolk this winter, but my occasional searches haven't turned it up - and it is meant to be rather portly, and thus thought unlikely to be a wild bird. Indeed, the whole concept of 'wild bird' nowadays is moot. All of the occasional seemingly wild Lesser White-fronted Geese found in the UK nowadays are thought to hail from the Swedish reintroduction project, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year; some birds, at least, winter in the Netherlands so not too far from our shores. Releases are ongoing, so the population is not considered self-sustaining at present, so these birds end up in the untickable 'Category E' of the British list (where Lammergeier resides, for example). Nevertheless, for a bird this rare in global terms, seeing even reintroduced birds - and particularly their wild-born offspring - is a treat. So when a party of seven turned up at Flamborough Head late last autumn, I seriously toyed with going to see them. And when they headed south from Spurn earlier this month, I hoped that they might be relocated in Norfolk. And perhaps they were - for a group of 24 (unprecedented in UK terms, and presumably hailing from normal wintering grounds in the Netherlands) was found on 20 Jan at RSPB Titchwell. They headed south before I could think of twitching them, so it was a joy to hear that they had been relocated at Snettisham. As I had a survey in north Norfolk yesterday, it seemed rude not to start the day by seeing them. And a truly wonderful, if slightly bizarre, sight they were.