Canada Goose with Orange Band, Pakenham Mill

We visited Pakenham Watermill for the first time on Saturday. It lies just across the road from Mickle Mere, a reserve in the care of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. We headed off to the hide, and enjoyed watching the nesting gulls and the young Moorhens and Coots. There were a few geese about - Egyptian, Greylag and Canada. The Canada Geese were a fair distance from the hide, so the photo above was taken on my zoom and has been enlarged. I apologise for the poor quality, particularly since it would have been interesting and helpful to have been able to have read the ringing ID on the orange collar.    

My understanding is that the significant details to record if you spot a neck band on a goose are ...

• the species, in this case Canada Goose
• the colour of the neck band
• the numbers or letters on it
• the colour of the numbers

Sightings of banded birds can be sent to www.ring.ac (here) which is a website run by BTO on behalf of the European Ringing Schemes.

You can read about the Cotswold Water Park banding research project here.

There were some strange leafy 'creatures' lurking in the meadow near the mill stream! 

Environmental Authors ~ Roger Deakin of Walnut Tree Farm

Robinson's Mill on Mellis Common ('Mellis' named after its 'mills')

We were on our way home on Saturday when I noticed a signpost stating that Mellis was 2 miles away. The place name conjured up all kinds of rural pictures in my mind because it was the home of Roger Deakin (1943-2006), the writer and environmentalist. Deakin lived at Walnut Tree Farm, a moated farmhouse, which seems an appropriate residence for the author of Waterlog, his first book.

It was lovely to find that the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin is kept as a wildlife sanctuary, in conjunction with the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

A lot of leaves had fallen, and it was beginning to look quite autumnal.