Bog Myrtle & Peat

Now that the geese have returned in good numbers, it’s part of the start of each day to listen for their arrival on the fields below the house. It’s been too mild for the mile-wide skeins of pink-footed geese which come here in colder years, but a hard core of local greylags has been augmented by a couple of thousand autumnal migrants.

The arrival of pink-footed geese from their breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle is a sound of the seasons, but all those greylags have done is simply move a little further down towards the sea from their summerlands in Nithsdale. They’re wild – but not really – and over the last ten years, the number of these birds has exploded here. A pair is now to be found breeding on every pool, pond and lochan in the county; without many natural predators, it’s not unusual to see each pair producing six or seven goslings every year. It’s no wonder they’re in a boom-period which has made them an almost-tame nuisance on many farms.

Ten years ago, I bought two domestic geese from the poultry auction in Castle Douglas. They were billed as a pair, but that was just salesmanship. They hated each other, and the delicate Chinese goose was overwhelmed by her snake-eyed, carrot-beaked gander.  As soon as I gave them space, he escaped from his pen and ran away, never giving a second’s thought to the “wife” he left behind him. With a shocking absence of gallantry, he joined a flock of lazy, feral geese which had fallen in to graze the nearby stubbles. The gander was almost twice the size of the grain-fed greylags, and while he never even attempted to fly during the short period of time in which I was able to call him “mine”, the bird soon picked up the knack.

At first he made small, leap-frogging flights to move across fences between fields, but over the ensuing years he turned up in flocks of geese towards Castle Douglas and the Glenkens. I suppose somebody shot him in the end, and that’s no skin off my nose. He was so big and frightening that it’s hard to imagine a natural disaster befalling him – there’s no such fox as would have ever dreamed of killing him, and while it’s nice to think of an eagle hammering into that arrogant bastard from behind, it’s only my wishful thinking. However, his ability to “go feral” undermined the respect I have for these lumpy, unambitious greylags which slouch around the fields at home all year. If a tame barnyard goose can “go wild”, it doesn’t say much for the demands of wilderness in Galloway.

But I can’t dismiss these birds altogether, because in previous years I have followed the progress of a single neck-ringed greylag goose which sometimes turns up here in the winter. She was ringed in Iceland, and unlike most of the birds which lounge around Galloway like gangs of unambitious children, she’s a useful reminder that this species can travel – and old original, wilder strains of greylag geese still move across extraordinary distances. Even as I write this, I’m waiting for the latest update on her whereabouts from BTO researchers who monitor sightings of ring-necked birds. Last I heard of her, she was back around Elgin – having made her third trip down to Scotland from the distant north. She wasn’t seen in Galloway at all last year, and it’s likely that she only comes this far down country when it’s cold. If this mild-weather cloud breaks into ice, maybe she’ll be inspired to visit Dalbeattie again.

Watching a small skein of pink-footed geese through a sudden flush of rain last week, I noticed that a different bird flew amongst them. It was pure white with a flash of black primary feathers, and having recently read a series of books and articles by the great Peter Scott, it seemed obvious that here was a snow goose – an arctic vagrant which had come down by accident from Greenland or Siberia. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one of these birds, and it turns out that only a few dozen appear in the UK each year – always singly or in small numbers mixed in with pink-foots. I never saw it again, but even a brief glimpse was a nudge to keep paying attention – just when something seems like it’s become boring or repetitive, it’s probably gearing up to surprise you.