Geese Return to Scotland

Return to Scotland of the Geese

Up here on an island in scotland’s north there arrival for me signals the portent of winter, darker days, wild storms and seas, the sun lower in the sky, each day casting longer fingers of shadows, when they leave they are a harbinger of spring, the season has turned a corner.

Believed in the 15th century to hatch from the fruit of trees than grew in the far north, a myth that may have come from driftwood covered in the Goose Barnacles, occasionally I’ll pick a piece up on the shore covered in long dead barnacles from warmer shores.

Much warier than the native greylags, at first sight of you a flock of perhaps two or three hundred strong will jump up as one, they favour the same fields every year, when having to share ground keeping a respectful distance from there larger greylag cousins.

Other geese are on the move, today while building the last leg of a dyke that will create a courtyard garden skein after skein of Greylags flew over from the north and northwest, some will boost local numbers others heading south to mainland, a few Brant will be seen along with the odd White Front but like the Whoopers who will soon arrive to spend a few days in the bay they’ll move on, just passing through while the Barnacles will stay, at least till the days grow longer.