Wild goose chase

Each autumn, Pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus), often called “pinkfeet,” undertake a dramatic annual migration, flying a thousand miles from their Arctic breeding grounds to over winter in the British Isles. Approximately 90% of the world’s population — over 400,000 birds — migrates to these shores to avoid harsh Arctic winters.

The geese arrive in Scotland from Iceland and Greenland starting in mid-September. Major staging posts include the Montrose Basin in Angus and Loch Levenin Perth and Kinross. Numbers usually peak in Scotland around mid-October, with tens of thousands of birds roosting on lochens and estuaries.

Last autumn, I took a trip up to Scotland I had been dreaming of for years to one of their regulars staging posts. Every evening the geese come in from the surrounding fields where they feed to roost on the waters of a small remote lochen which offers sanctuary from natural predators and other disturbances.

Whilst I was really looking forward to what was a trip a few years in the making, nothing quite prepared me for the sight of skein upon skein of tens of thousands of incoming geese. It was simply breathtaking. Once over the lochen, the geese descended from the sky in erratic, zig zag patterns, allowing them to lose altitude quickly and avoid predators. This flight manouvere is known as ‘whiffling’.

I spent a very special night by the shores of the lochen, listening to the geese as they roosted, making their characteristic “wink-wink” sounds as they called to one another in the darkness. These sounds are different altogether to the deeper honking sounds of greylags, echoing long in the memory after leaving their company.

I woke up at first light to a thick fog. I could still hear the geese, I just couldn’t see them. As the sun started to rise though, the fog gradually began to lift, revealing the spcacle of thousands of geese effortlessly gliding across the still waters of the lochen.

As the light levels started to improve still further the geese became restless and started to leave in small family groups, taking off across the lake. It was then I noticed the faint ghostly white arc of a fogbow forming a beautiful backdrop for their lift off. A fogbow, or white rainbow, is a rare meteorological phenomenon, like a rainbow that forms when sunlight opposite interacts with tiny water droplets in fog causing light to pass through it and resulting in diffraction. I was blessed with truly special conditions that morning. There was hardly a breath of wind also meaning the geese cast perfect reflections as they rose.

As food supplies such as spilled grain start to diminish and temperatures drop in Scotland during November and December, large flocks move further south, continuing their migration towards Lincolnshire and Norfolk – the second stage of their broader autumn journey.

Significant numbers reach the North Norfolk coast and The Wash by late October or November. They remain there through the winter until roughly mid-January or February before moving again and beginning their return north in April.

Major roosting areas include the mudflats at RSPB Snettisham. Every morning, thousands of geese leave their coastal roosts shortly before dawn, en masse to find inland feeding grounds, returning at dusk in a dramatic visual and auditory display. Between Christmas and New Year I made three trips to Norfolk to witness this breathtaking spectacle. The last two trips I made with my son and the next few images are his.

Geese travel in characteristic “V” formations, known as skeins to reduce wind resistance for birds following the leader.

Whilst we were there it was great to catch up with my dear friend, Les Bunyan, a volunteer warden at RSPB Snettisham and Titchwell. I always look forward to catching up with Les and it is always very special to spend time in his company. His passion and boundless enthusiasm for the waders and waterfowl of the Wash is unmatched.

Our last trip for the early morning lift off at Snettisham was particularly cold, minus four degrees Celsius with winds blowing at a bracing 28 miles an hour , meaning it felt closer to minus ten. So cold in fact that sea ice formed over the Wash transforming RSPB Snettisham into a winter wonderland. Cold enough still that the geese didn’t fancy roosting out on the exposed mudflats, instead taking the wise decison to roost on the comparative shelter of the salt marshes at the edge of the Wash.

In spite of the extreme cold it was a magical morning, made even more special as the first full moon of the year, the Cold moon, rose over a small group of roosting knot as captured by my son in the image below.

During the day the geese spend their time feeding out in the arable fields that are so much a part of the Norfolk landscape.

Pink feet have developed a significant, albeit artificial, winter foraging relationship with sugar beet fields of East Anglia.

The geese are specifically drawn to Norfolk travelling in their characteristic skeins searching for fields to feed on the sugar beet tops left after the winter harvest.

The geese rely on the discarded tops and remnants of harvested sugar beet as a rich food source during the harsh winter months.

Sugar beet is harvested later than many other crops, which provides feeding opportunities well into the late autumn and early winter.

The geese have adapted to utilise them as a major winter food source, gathering in their thousands to feast in the farmers’ fields.

The Pink feet represent a success story for the relationship between wildlife and farming.The geese eat the parts of the sugar beet that the farmers discard. Whilst in those fields, the geese are fertilising them with their droppings and also are distracted from standing around in, or eating in, winter wheat fields. It’s a win-win for both man and nature.

I learnt from speaking to one farmer, Robert, whose fields I was photographing thousands of geese in, and his daughter, Jules, just how much the local farming community love and cherish the geese and how much they consider them part of Norfolk’s living landscape and look forward to their arrival.

The geese share that landscape with other wildlife of course. Flocks of lapwing for one, a beautiful sight as they turn and bank in the low winter light.

We finished our wild goose chase at the start of the New Year at Holkham National Nature Reserve, another primary roost site for the geese in Norfolk. Holkham is another conservation success story. Here the geese share the landscape with barn owls, kestrels and wigeon, not to mention the Chinese Water Deer who are ubiquitous and now very much at home in the landscape.

As I write this, I can hear the geese calling once again. As the seasons continue to turn, they are becoming restless as they prepare to take off once again in their vast skeins for their Spring migratory journey back North, a thousand miles, in search of the breeding grounds of the Arctic tundra they call home.