Red-breasted Goose

After coffee in our favourite garden centre we went to a nearby farm shop for some cakes and ham for lunch. Across the road is Broadditch Pond, which I last photographed during the floods back in February.

Today was somewhat drier, and there was a large flock of Greylag Geese milling around the pond, ambushing any young child with a bag of bread who turned up. However my eye was drawn to this rather different looking bird, around the size of a common mallard.

He turned out to be tricky to identify, but eventually I tracked him down in a book of European birds. He is a red breasted goose, more commonly seen in Eastern Europe, and currently on the endangered list. So I feel quite privileged to have seen him.