The Pink-footed Geese that spend the winter
with us in North Norfolk originate from Iceland and Greenland. The latest
estimates for this population totals 225,000 birds and in recent years the peak winter
count in North Norfolk was over 76,000, representing about a third of the total Icelandic
and Greenland populations and over a quarter of the world population.
| Some of the flocks seen over the village may
have come to us via traditional staging posts in Scotland and northern England. 
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Dusk will usually find them flying over the
village towards the marshes en-route for the roost site at the western end of Scolt Head
Island while some may take a more easterly route and head for the Holkham/Wells area where
they normally roost on the sands to the east of Wells Harbour.
The Wells area has been a traditional roost site for some
150 years, except during the war years when the salt marshes and sand of Warham and
Stiffkey became an anti-aircraft firing range and the Holkham grazing marshes came under
the plough. In contrast, it is understood that the Scolt Head Island roost site is a
comparatively recent event, with the first record of Pink-feet using it in November 1979.
Although a surprisingly recent development, the term 'traditional roost' is
accepted locally. A recent co-ordinated count of birds using this roost was in the
order of 56,000 birds. There is another established roost site on the mudflats of
the Wash at Snettisham in the north west Norfolk.
| The number of birds at roost sites build up
rapidly towards the end of October and flocks can be seen flighting each morning out to
the freshly-harvested sugar-beet fields to the south of the village. Sugar beet is
the favoured food in this area, the geese feeding on the tops which have been mechanically
chopped off and discarded after the root has been harvested. The flock(s) will
work their way through the patchwork of harvested fields until the supply of tops becomes
exhausted or is ploughed in, which can often be the situation by mid-February, when flocks
of Pink-feet begin to frequent the grazing marshes. By then some groups have already
moved north to the next staging post in Lancashire en-route to their breeding grounds. |
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The distance the geese travel from the
roost sites to their feeding areas can vary considerably. We know from marked birds
that geese from the Scolt Head roost may be found in beet fields southwards from the
Staithe towards Stanhoe and Docking, and as far as South Creake, Flitcham and Ringstead in
the west. Wild geese of several other species may sometimes get mixed up with the
migrating flocks en-route to Norfolk and be seen within the area. During the present
winter period, the flock has been joined by a Ross's Goose (origin unknown) but its size
and white colouration has made it relatively easy to locate and act as an indicator in the
movement of the Pink-footed Goose flocks. This goose along with flocks of Pink-feet
have been seen as far away as Waxham, near Great Yarmouth only to be found locally again
next morning. Who would have thought ! ! !
The above can only be a very abbreviated history of our
geese which many visitors come to see during the winter months. If you want to know
more about OUR geese, may I suggest you contact James McCallum (01328 820176) and obtain a
copy of his recently published and very readable book (including drawings and painting,
some of which are displayed on this page) entitled "Wild Goose Winter" on which
I have based this resume.
Keith Herber
Dale End, Brancaster Staithe.
2002 |
