Each dawn and dusk, with deep, sonorous calls, skeins of geese in V formation pass between the peak-encircled estuaries of Dwyryd and Glaslyn, Yr Wyddfa prominent above. The geese glide down from their high flight paths to alight on Traeth Bach, or on the nearby pastures reclaimed from the huge tidal wilderness of Traeth Mawr by “the Cob” sea wall between Porthmadog and Boston Lodge. I see them grazing in large flocks on Glastraeth as I walk the wall south of Afon Dwyryd.
Predominantly they are Canada geese. Thirty years ago, there would have been greylag, barnacle and Greenland pink-footed among them. Not now. Canada geese are large, handsome, characterful. One of my most memorable wildlife encounters happened 30 years ago in Wyoming’s Lamar Valley.
At quiet dusk, one of the then newly reintroduced wolves took a Canada goose before my eyes as I watched a small group huddled near a log that the winter floods had brought down. Suddenly the log had grown ears. A dark shape bounded over, seized a bird, leapt back over the log and disappeared into glimmering low mist across the willow flats.
While I remain fond of Canada geese, not everyone is. They’re non-native, fast breeders, an invasive species. The landscape designer Capability Brown installed decorative flocks of them on estate lakes and parks throughout England in the 18th century. Their postwar spread and proliferation has been astonishing. Seventy years ago, when my grandfather took me daily to Manchester’s Platt Fields Lake to feed ducks with stale bread, none were there. Now there are hundreds.
They’re too importunate, people say, too aggressive in human interactions. When you walk among the flocks on Glastraeth’s creek-seamed saltmarsh where they graze, the big ganders come at you, hissing, necks outstretched. It’s all show. When I was at the Quaker study centre in Selly Oak in the 1960s, I made a pet of one from the garden lake. Eventually, I had to dissuade him from following me into meetings. Even Quaker tolerance has its limits.
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