Migrating Geese at Dungeness

In the UK, the last week has seen the main winter arrivals of Brent Geese from Northern Russia. On my last post, we saw them for the first timetaking a short-cutting over Shadoxhurst instead of following the coast round. So the next day I went down to Dungeness point for a sea watch for Geese and Terns. When I arrived, their was a stiff onshore wind, a very high tide and much sea spray seemingly aiming for the 82 mm of glass in front of my camera. I noticed little skeins of Brent Geese flying tight to the beachline, flying perhaps 2 metres above the sea. But the time I'd raised my canera they were gone. A shame as I thought they'd have made a good picture.
They looked very purposeful, unperturbed by the strong wind. Strangely, all the birds were flying east around the point, perhaps looking for respite in Greatstone Bay.

I hoped I'd get a second chance at photographing a flock, just a matter of time I thought before some more geese would follow a similar path. Besides I'd also been destracted by some Skuas harrowing Terns, perhaps I could 'catch' them too?

After waiting for an hour or so, my luck was in - a second skein passing round the Dungeness point heading straight towards me. Struggling to keep the salt and spray off my lens, I managed to get some reasonably close pictures of these enigmatic little Geese. The results are okay, but if I could have kept the sea spray away they'd have been so much sharper.