Blogger: Rachael Murray, Media Officer
As I awoke last weekend, with the sun sparkling on my window pane and the house feeling unseasonably warm, it was hard to believe that it was October already. So, my original plan of a fortifying autumnal walk on North Norfolk’s beautiful Holkham Beach was scuppered.
I was forced to have a summery beach walk instead! So, I swapped my trousers for shorts, my fleece for a t-shirt and made sure I coated every exposed piece of my skin with industrial strength sun cream (a sun burn related incident earlier in the year had left its mark, both mentally and physically, I was taking no chances!).
My journey to the coast took me through a patchwork of arable fields and along windy hedge-lined roads punctuated by chocolate box villages, cottage gardens, ice-cream shops and sun dappled dog walkers.
I suppose it was a bit of an omen as I passed through Guist, I just didn’t know it yet.
On arrival at Holkham and the endless expanse of beach stretched out before me, rather than embrace this wondrous natural environment, I couldn’t help but be distracted by a sound that could only be described as similar to a group of small agitated donkeys. But as I walked closer to the glittering sea, my curiosity about that strange sound left me. The sand dunes embraced me into their golden folds as I was drawn towards my flip-flop clad adventure to Wells-next-the-sea. And all memory of it had disappeared as I tucked into a slice of Battenberg sponge at the Beach Cafe.
It was only on my walk back from Wells that I was reminded of that incredible noise. There it was again, but it was getting louder. As my eyes were drawn upwards, I saw the grid-like formation of over 500 pink-footed geese overhead, transforming what had just a second earlier been a big cloudless Norfolk sky.
Honking enthusiastically, with their characteristic feet trailing like miniature airborne pink kites, I could only imagine what they were all communicating to the myriad ‘V’ shaped groups of their fellow birds. ‘Wait for me!’ perhaps. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ maybe. Or my favourite, the rallying cry of ‘Honk if you want to go faster!’.
Every autumn, tens of thousands of pink-footed geese travel from Iceland and Greenland to spend a milder winter on the coasts of the UK. One of their favourite places is at RSPB Snettisham, on the North Norfolk Coast, where there is the perfect habitat for well protected winter roots, and nearby fields filled with sugar beet for lunchtime foraging during the day. That day I witnessed what will be just one of many communities of geese arriving in the east, and there are many more on their way.
Soon, there will be up to 40,000 birds found at Snettisham, where they will be running ‘Big Pink Breakfasts’ offering us an early morning adventure watching the dawn flight of tens of thousands of pink-footed geese as they leave their night-time roost on The Wash. To find out more about attending a Big Pink Breakfast, visit www.rspb.org.uk/snettisham.
And if you have a twitter account, you can help us as we track the geese as they arrive. Just tweet brief details of your goose sightings, including #goosewatch in your message, to help us find out more about our wintering geese populations this year.
Photo credit: Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)