On the outskirts of Southwold, between Buss Creek and the River Blythe, there’s a marshy wonderland with curlews and lapwings, and the whole sky rings with oystercatchers. I’m looking for geese. I don’t know which geese, or where they will be, but I’m determined to find them.
I admit to never having much interest in geese before now. But last Christmas I read Nick Acheson’s The Meaning of Geese and experienced something of a goosey awakening. On my first day here, as I traipsed the old railway line towards the harbour, thousands of honking birds flew overhead. I raised my binoculars to a cloud of cream‑white faces, black necks, black-and-grey wings and white bellies – my first ever barnacle geese. Hello!
These weren’t just any barnacle geese, they were Nick’s barnacle geese. Barnacles traditionally breed in the Arctic tundra and migrate to the UK for the winter. But a few have set up home in Nick’s patch in Holkham, north Norfolk, and they overwinter here, down the road in Southwold.
It wasn’t enough to see them overhead. I wanted to find a full field of geese like those in the book. I wanted to peer through a hedge to see thousands of bodies, to feel their honking in my bones. The next day we were unlucky, though we did find a black goose that looked like it was wearing a grey shawl, and was sipping from a puddle – perhaps a dark‑bellied brent. Hang on, am I a goose person now?
With just one day to find my field of geese, we wake at 5.30am. As the night fades, lapwings begin to wheel and cormorants dive. We hear geese but we don’t see them. They must be close. “This way,” I tell the dog.
We find a path that takes us behind the harbour cafe and the fish shops, to a stretch of land where we finally find geese. Small skeins land noisily before a rising sun, there’s a hurried chatter of unknown busyness. Through my binoculars I can make out only tiny bodies of Nick’s barnacles. Still, the field is full of them. We stand at the gate and feel honking in our bones.
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