Wednesday mornings have become a predictable affairâeach week beginning with a stroll across Battersby Moor. This morning, however, my private reverie were rudely interrupted by the coarse honking of a skein of geese, or what I dare venture to call greylags, flapping about in that charmingly organised way they have, perhaps several hundred strong, hurtling toward Bilsdale with a purpose known only to themselves.
As I tracked their awkward V-shaped formation, a rather sentimental thought intruded: doubtless a good number of these ungainly birds were the hatchlings of the past spring, transformed from absurd little balls of down into these full-fledged migrants in what seems a blink of an eyeâsixteen weeks, give or take. Imagine the efficiency! The geese hatch, fledge, and flee the place of their birth all in a matter of months. They mate for life, they tell us, and fly down to their winter quarters as a family until next year when, presumably, the domestic routine begins afresh. How pleasant.
Of course, their winter will be spent in our coastal estuaries, but have long since developed a refined taste for farmers’ cropsâwinter wheat and barley are favourites, I am told. The damage they can inflict is not to be underestimated; a mere five geese can devour in a day the equivalent of what a sheep might consume. One can only marvel at the saintly patience of those farmers, who, year after year, permit these avian marauders to persist in such numbers. Although, some populationsâparticularly those in the softer climates of southern Englandâhave dispensed with the whole tiresome migration business altogether, lounging about in urban parks like idlers with no thought for the heroic journeys of their northern cousins.
No sooner had I resumed my thoughts when, naturally, a low-flying jet shattered the tranquility once more, performing a graceless 180° turn around Roseberry. No doubt some vital business was at hand that required such haste.
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