Young country diary: A sky full of geese is an awe-inspiring sight

The first thing you hear is a raucous cacophony in the distance, ebbing and flowing. Then the first small specks appear, and soon the sky is filled with a seemingly never-ending flow of geese.

These are pink-footed geese, who migrate to north Norfolk at the start of winter along with hundreds of thousands of other geese. They come here to escape the harsh winters of Siberia, Iceland and Greenland, where they breed. Norfolk has an abundance of food compared to the Arctic: leaves, berries, seeds and crop remains.

Soon they will go back, but for a few magnificent, dark months, the skies are filled twice a day with the high-pitched chorus. It’s an awe-inspiring thing to witness, standing outside with the cold air around you, watching the geese fly over your house in the morning. V-shaped strands fill the sky, almost like a moving blanket, as they pass overhead.

When they’re here, they fly inland to feed on the dormant sugar beet fields, before returning in the evening to roost in the salt marsh. Their comings and goings define the day here, and they help us to navigate the year as well – their arrival each November is a sure sign that winter has arrived, and when they leave we know spring is on its way.

It is an incredible thing to be utterly out-numbered by wild birds, giving you a sense of the wonderful complexity of life and brightening the damp winter months on the East Anglian coast.
Etta, 12

Read today’s other YCD piece, by Esther, 11: ‘A winter festival of ivy’

Young Country Diary is published every fourth Saturday of the month. The submission form is now closed, but it will reopen on Saturday 1 March for spring pieces, staying open until Monday 31 March