Geese, buntings and witches' knickers

I took advantage of the Christmas break to visit Norfolk. At Cantley in the Yare valley, we watched white-fronted and bean geese grazing peacefully in the meadows that have been managed specially for them. They've arrived for the winter from their breeding grounds in Siberia, Scandinavia or Russia. The 'wheeoo' whistling calls of wigeons came from a nearby pool - for me, one of the true, atmospheric sounds of winter.

On the coast at Salthouse, a blizzard of snow buntings whirled around the shingle ridge before coming down to feed within a few metres of us, joined by a few Lapland buntings - more northern European breeding birds which come to the UK because it's warmer! Turnstones, wading birds which do just what their name suggests, bickered and chattered around the edge of a shallow pool, not bothered by the assorted walkers and birdwatchers who wandered past.

Eventually the daylight began to run out and we started our journey home. It's always worth keeping your eye out for birds on the way home (if you're not driving, that is). Long, drawn-out skeins of pink-footed geese flew over as they moved from their daytime feeding sites in the fields (where sugar beet tops and potatoes are on the menu) towards the Wash. A flock of lapwings in a field. Fieldfares scattering from a hedgerow where they'd been gorging on berries.

Then, something which is an all too common sight these days... a white bird in a tree or hedge that turns out, on closer inspection, to be a carrier bag. I've read that in Ireland, such objects are referred to as witches' knickers and in South Africa, the national flower.

Only this time - for once in my life - it wasn't a carrier bag, it was a barn owl, teetering at the top of a spindly tree just metres from the road! Verges can be good hunting places for owls, though they often dice with death as traffic rushes past. I only got a brief glimpse of the bag-owl as we drove past, but its image will stay with me for far longer. It's the joy of the unexpected.