Pink feet ID.

[Gordon]

 Hi - First post here.
I'm fairly new to identifying many birds and have noticed the posts on Pink feet flying overhead.   I've seen and heard some 'Skein's' (great new word to me) of geese flying over the Saltburn area reciently and am wondering if they are all regarded as Pink feet and if so I'll post my sightings.
Any tips would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Gordon.

[IanF]

Geese in flight can be tricky to identify especially with so many arriving/passing through at present.

This time of year Pink-footed Geese can usually be picked out overhead as they pass through this area in large flocks often flying very high up in the classic V formations. Sometimes in loose formations but also in tight formation of a hundred or more. If not too windy their distinctive calls separate them from the more obvious Greylag Geese and Canada Geese.

Some Pink-footed Geese stop off locally to rest and feed but mostly in this area it's Canadas and Greylags with lower numbers of a few others.

Greylags and Canadas both can fly in similar formations so not all you see will be Pink-footed.

[Jamie]

As Ian mentions the 'Wink Wink' calls are a very good way to separate them when you learn the call as it can be heard a long way off. There is a recording of them here http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=022M-W1CDR0001375-1600V0.xml# that you can play

[RCT]

This call can often be heard at night as skeins pass over heading to Norfolk.

[Craig Williams]

I live in Seamer near Stokesley so just outside the area. We have had skeins of Pink Feet over every morning and evening for the past month or so. I have watched them feeding in fields around the general area. A few years ago they fed in a field between Stokesley and Hutton Rudby, near Skutterskelfe and one morning whilst videoing them, an immature female Peregrine made some unsuccessful, clumsy dives at them and they didnt come back to that field. Incidently the Peregrine wintered in the area.

Does anyone know where the Pink Feet go at night? I assume they find a body of water (Scaling Dam, Lockwood, Saltholme?)

[RCT]

The Pink-feet are all heading down to North Norfolk where most of the world's population now winter, feeding on harvested sugar beet fields. Obviously odd ones spend time in this region on the way there or back but it is only a tiny percentage. Around Feb-Mar time they head back north, via the Lancs Mosses or the Scotish borders.

[steveduke]

I think the call is very distinctive when you get to know it - but there's the trick!  All the internet and CD facilities are good.  P-Fs really are audibly different from Greylags, Canadas and Beans (and I don't think you're going to get too bothered by Barnacles and White-fronts).  I think all the big skeins in our area are all Pink-feet, but we could have a weird year!  Watch out for odd singletons: had a Pink-foot very very close in off Marske a week ago, swimming in the sea, before flying off who knows where.
Cheers,
Steve
PS Damian Money gets a lot over his place - - contact him over IDs - if you're in Saltburn he's close by.

[Gordon]

Well -- there have been .. what.. 4,5 skeins over my place since my posting... 2 today.. and Im pretty sure they had the characteristic vocals of pink feet but I'm still not certain enough to post my sightings.
    Is it ok to say there was a skein of geese like birds..
    -     I've looked to see if any other birders saw them but fraid not .. only my eldrely neighbour who came out to see them pass overhead...they were lower than normal....

I also saw the recient birds over Saltburn golf course ... and unfortunately assumed they were pink feet... somebody posted that they were swans...

[Jamie]

Hi,

its fine to post you have seen skeens of probable Pink-footed Geese. All we ask is that if you are not 100% sure you use a word like probable to indicate you are not 100% sure