Barnacle geese in Norfolk continue to surprise, with a flock of 700 birds recently spotted over Holkham Park. These noisy, boisterous geese should by rights be breeding in Siberia, but they have made eastern England their home. Their presence is a testament to their adaptability and the quiet defiance of their genes.
The geese were first heard before they were seen, their breathy, barking calls alerting observers to their arrival. They tumbled noisily to land, spilling across dandelion-dappled grass in yapping, energetic groups. Many of them are old acquaintances, ringed in 2021 as part of a study led by ornithologist Kane Brides.
In July 2021, a team herded the flightless, moulting Holkham flock into a corral, ringing 400 birds. Each was given a numbered Darvic ring for monitoring. After regrowing their primary feathers in August, the geese left for Southwold, 70 miles to the south-east, where they wintered with the breeding flock from Pensthorpe, descendants of deliberate releases in the 1980s.
The geese, with their chalk-white faces and velvet hoods, are a beloved sight. They pluck at Holkham's March-sweet grass with neat black bills. Transplanted by humans from the Arctic tundra, they stayed, bred, and made a home. Now they belong in Norfolk.
