The Pink-Foot Spectacular

12 December 2015

Snettisham

Having stayed the night as a guest of her majesty - not under restraint but in a caravan site on the Sandringham estate - I decided to drive home since the weather had deteriorated. However, I had seen  something about "pink-foot walks" which took place at Snettisham. The pink foot name has nothing to do with sore feet but relates to one of our less common wintering wild geese, the Pink Foot. Evidently at dawn, when the tide is high, you can see huge flocks of geese and waders taking to the air. With not much phone signal I was struggling to get the internet but managed to find out where Snettisham was -  only 10 miles away. Then with great difficulty I found the tide tables. High tide was at 7, and it was then 6am. First light would be around 7.20. The next thing was to find the weather forecast, but I just could not get the right page to load on my phone. Expecting rain, I was prepared to give up the whole idea when a thought struck:

"Hang on you prat. Why not look out of the door!"

I did and saw a clear sky just beginning to lighten a little, but still showing a few stars. The rain would no doubt come later. I had time for a  warming breakfast of porridge and coffee on a rough lay-bye just before the RSPB car park, which was barred to high vehicles. It was 300 metres to the car park and as I loaded up camera, binoculars and the other bits like phone and spare batteries, there was just enough light to see the path. It turned out to be a 1.5km walk from there to the first hide, but that was OK - it already felt like an adventure, and I welcomed the exercise in the cold morning air.  After what seemed like a long time skirting various fishing lakes, the path climbed up the side of  a dyke and I looked forward to a view of the Wash or at least an expanse of salt-marsh. What I saw brought me down to earth with a bump. There, right in front of me, was a caravan park. On and on went the path through the caravans, round more lakes - former gravel diggings for the air-fields of the last war, now brackish lagoons, littered with broken concrete and decorated with a row of small houses in all sorts of styles. Clearly this part of the reserve was not one of the stunning  wild places so beloved of the writers of RSPB leaflets.

Eventually I got to the shingle beach. The sun was beginning to rise behind me and in front was the vast expanse of water, mud and sand which is the Wash. Already swans and a few geese were flying over and way out over the sand I could see flocks of waders shining suddenly as they all turned together. There was a group of people up ahead and I guessed they were on the "pink-foot walk". We all stood looking out to sea and listening to the soundscape of bird calls.

Then something happened. Away to the west a black cloud rose. Moving like a flowing liquid it spread  up and out across the water. As it moved we began to hear the most extraordinary sound. It was sibilant, continuous, like a giant miles away slowly breathing out; like an endless wave breaking along an endless shore, and within it were faintly musical tones.

This was obviously a flock of birds and was making the sort of looping and swirling shapes made famous by the great starling roosts in the cities. This flock was not starlings, but a much bigger bird  - countless thousands of Pink Footed Geese. The flock was moving rapidly towards us and as it came, the mass dissolved into skeins - hundreds of interlocking and ever changing V formations. The noise grew but was never loud - you felt the geese were not shouting, but murmuring to each other. They flew over our heads and made towards the growing light in the east - on their way to feed on sugar beet tops  provided for them by benevolent farmers, who get help to compensate for the damage they do.

Thank you geese and friendly farmers  for a spectacle I will never forget. The tedious prospect of the long drive home was lifted.