As we drove to Littleferry for the first time in some weeks this morning we passed two fields full of geese contentedly eating the Culmaily farmer's grass crop. It was difficult to estimate how many were there but it must have been in the low hundreds.
They were pink-footed geese, the same as, earlier in the winter, were regularly passing over Golspie in large skeins, something we've not seen this year, so presumably they are very adequately fed in these fields.
The tide was falling in Loch Fleet when we arrived but few waders and other shore birds were present - mostly oystercatchers, redshanks and widgeon with a few curlews, but just below where we were standing we spotted....
....a lone pink-footed goose which ignored us while it concentrated on - apparently - drinking water. It was obviously sick, perhaps with bird flu which has decimated flocks in some parts of Scotland, so we left it....
....to walk through the woodland past Loch Unes, frozen after last night's hard frost, to reach the beach and along it to the mouth of Loch Fleet where, again, there was little to be seen in the way of bird life....
....beyond a few cormorants, oystercatchers and, out in the stream, small groups of mostly female eider ducks (above).
When we returned to the car we crossed the road to check on the goose to find that, in the short time we'd been away, it had succumbed.
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