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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hotspur" data-source="post: 1419211" data-attributes="member: 11053"><p>Thats not to say Grey-bellied can be dismissed easily. Pale-bellied are a carrier species swith an adjacent range. Birds have reached the UK before with one at Easington, East Yorks in 2006 and a group of between 7 & 11 with pale bellied brents in Northern Ireland in 2001. Birds like this being seen regularly in East Anglia may refer to 1 or 2 long-lived returning individuals as with the Black Brant situation (probably). The bird in question is not a pale-bellied brent because it has colour on the belly, posterior to the legs and isnt a black brant so is either a strange coloured dark-bellied brent or a hybrid if not grey-bellied. Id say it may be 1st winter as there seems to be a hint of pale tips to the wing coverts although hard to tell from the photo. The collar seems to be larger than pale-bellied but not so extensive as black brant. Against grey-bellied is the mantle tone being too cold. There is no widespread hybridsation in brent geese (Garner, 2008) and the occurence of vagrant grey-bellied already would seemingly make this form more likely. Sadly the population of Grey-bellied is between 4-8000 birds and probably decreasing. Whether this affects the likelihood of vagration Im not sure (lower numbers = higher likelihood of individual vagration, especially if associating with potential carrier species on breeding grounds, but smaller pool for possible vagrants to come from).</p></blockquote><p></p>

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