When in the hide at Scaling Dam on 15th November there was a note from Dave Britton in the logbook concerning 5 Russian White-fronted Geese he had seen at this site. He suggested that these were the same birds as the 5 'Greenland White-fronted Geese' that Don Page and I saw off Cowbar on 9th November with a flock of 90 Canada Geese and the Red-breasted Goose.
I agree that there is a significant possibility that the two groups of birds are one and the same, though we did not see the 5 geese at Cowbar fly off so cannot confirm which direction they departed. The Cowbar flock was at least a kilometre away and, through our 'scopes, the 5 grey geese were noticeably dark, had very white 'sterns' and were more Greylag-like and we were were both convinced that their rather large bills were orange.
At the time, we didn't consider Russian White-front, which we should have done, as this is larger, darker and heavier-billed than Eurasian and far more resembles the Greenland race, except for having a pink bill. Underpart patterning obviously couldn't be seen as the birds were sitting on the sea. Although we felt sure that the Cowbar birds' bills were orange, due to distance, it is conceivable that we were mistaken: pink and orange are notoriously difficult to differentiate. In view of this, we accept that the geese could have been Russian White-fronts.
Ted Parker