THE WILD GREY-GEESE OF HOLKHAM.
TN a letter written in 1870 to the late Mr. Stevenson, and published by him in the third volume of "The Birds of Norfolk," Lord Leicester says, "As long as I can recollect, wild-geese have frequented the Holkham and Burnham marshes. Their time of appearing in this district is generally the last week of October, and their departure the end of March, varying a little according to the season. Till November they rarely alight in the marshes or elsewhere in the neighbourhood, but are seen passing to and from the sea. Where they feed in October, I know not ; but from early in November till their time of departure for the North, the Efolkham marshes have almost daily some hundreds of geese feeding in them." These wild-geese, from the time when they alight on their ancestral sandbank "to pay their rents for last years' food and lodging," as the fishermen say, until their -departure for the North, are perhaps the most unusual and interesting of the rare birds to be found on the Norfolk coast. The semi-sanctuary which they enjoy at Holkham makes it possible to observe them more closely than is often possible in the case of such wary and intelligent birds; and though they are not the largest species, being the pink-footed, and not the grey-lag species, from which our tame birds are 'descended, they are true "grey-geese," and as wild as those which Charles St. John used to stalk on the Bay -of Findhorn. The wings of the largest birds measure 5 ft. from tip to tip, and the usual weight is from five to six pounds. From the nature of their food they are as desirable for the table as a "stubble goose" at Michaelmas ; but though, when the full numbers have -arrived from the North, there must at times be as many as a thousand gathered at nightfall on the sands, their wariness is such that probably not 5 per cent, of their company fail to leave our coasts in spring. Though their nightly roosting. place on the sandbank is not more than two miles from a town of two thousand inhabitants, near which they fly twice -daily on their way to and from their feeding-grounds, the geese, in their times of going and returning, have so nicely -studied the hours of civilised man, and are so well acquainted with the limits of the protected area in which they usually feed during the daytime, that an ordinary visitor might spend months in the neighbourhood without seeing even a portion of the flock.
A single grey-goose, flying along the sandhills towards dusk, was the first ocular evidence to the writer that the birds were in the neighbourhood. It passed on with even, steady beats of the wings, and neck stretched out horizontally, the body never rising or falling an inch above or below the line at which it was travelling, until it disappeared in a fog-bank above the sand. The marshes whence it came were those lying between Holkham and Wells, and it seemed probable that the geese were in their old haunt, as they were in 1870,—a curious in- stance, if justified by facts, of the conservative instinct of birds. A walk of two miles to Holk ham showed that this was the case. From the former line of coast, now covered with timber and fields, the long fringe of " meal-marshes " can be seen stretching for miles on either side, an open prairie of grass, unbroken by hedge or tree, but divided lengthways by earthen banks, marking the limit of successive reclam - tione, and crossed only by a single road, leading from Holkham village to Holkham Bay. Thus every creature moving in the "meal-marshes" can be seen by a good pair of eyes, equipped with proper field-glasses; but the distances are great, the colour and shades of the grass, varying from bright green in the old " meals " to a dull glaucous grey in the more recent reclamations, is deceptive, the wet dykes, banks, and occa- sional pools of water break the level more than is apparent, and the great number of birds feeding and moving in this immense sanctuary confuse and puzzle the vision when seeking to identify an unfamiliar species.
At the writer's first visit, at noon, on a January morning, every part of the marsh showed large birds of different species at rest or in motion. A covey of partridges, as tame as chickens, lay just beyond the road-fence. Pheasants were straying down the dyke sides, and hooded-crows flapping and alighting further out in the flat. Near the centre hundreds of gulls were wheeling and screaming, and flocks of green. plover drifting over the levels. At intervals along the flat half a score of herons were fishing in the dykes, and as they flew low, from point to point, raised for a moment a doubt whether these were not the geese. We had hardly identified and dismissed these various "sources of error," when the first geese were seen upon the flats. Seven great birds rose from an expanse of half-dead, greyish grass in the centre of the marsh, and, flying low over the ground, alighted at a distance of half a mile, near to a similar tract of pasture. There the glass showed distinctly line after line of geese, drawn up like companies of grey-coated soldiers, in the most open portion of the "meals." The drift of winter vapours across this fen, and the background of sanaille studded with rough grass and pines, accounted in part for their previous invisibility ; but an accident -showed that this "grey-goose" exactly matches the general tone of winter sky, sea, and vapours. Something disturbed the birds, and the whole flock, numbering above two hundred, came flying in double line overhead, at a height of not more than thirty yards. It was then seen that every part of the plumage, below as well as above, was a uniform smoky grey, no white showing in any part. The order of flight was in close double line, the wings of one goose just clearing those of its neigh- bour, though the central files were slightly advanced, giving to the line a slightly crescent form. In this reclamation the wild-geese remain, grazing like sheep upon the grasses, from dawn till dusk, unless the humour takes them to fly inland and find a change of diet on the clover-fields or winter-sown wheat. Towards evening they collect into a single body, previous to their final flight for the sandbank on which they roost. In certain winds they leave the marsh at once, and pass out to sea at Holkham Bay. whence they fly eastward to the great outer sand. The path to the bay, where the evening flight of the geese may best be viewed, runs between the sand- hills and the sea. There were signs that some of the flock bad the previous night roosted on the sands of Holkham Bay itself ; but the roar of the advancing sea showed that the tide was flowing fast, the wet sands grew wetter still, and it was clear that on this night they must seek a more distant resting-place. From the summit of the " hills " around the bay the whole of the inner marsh was visible, while as far as Brancaster Haven the level ran due west, backed by the long lines of Holkham Woods. Westward, beyond the flats, the setting BUD, till then invisible, lifted the bottom of a cloud, and shot first red shafts of light across the marsh and sea, and then, clearing the cloud, filled all the flats with golden haze, creeping low under the sullen winter sky. For many minutes a continuous line of gulls, which bad been feeding inland, kept floating seawards to the bay. The line extended as far as the eye could reach, the birds becoming visible as tiny specks over the gap in which lies Holkham Lake, and dropping, as they arrived, by the margin of the sea. The stream of gulls had hardly ceased when the main body of the geese were seen flying up the marsh from the west. When opposite the bay they turned, and, flying backwards, pitched in a long line in the marsh, and there waited for the dusk before taking their final flight. From a hollow on the summit of a sandbill, sheltered by fringes of marrum-grass and cushioned on soft sand, we watched the night set in over marshes, sands, and sea. Landwards, as the light faded and the after-glow died out, the line of woods formed a wall of blackness
next the sky. At their feet the marsh levels still held light, and even the mass of the grey-geese was visible for a time. A sheet of greenish cloud still lit up the West, and when the marshes were at last wrapped in the blanket of twilight, the pools and dykes shone bright with its reflected glow. Behind and seawards were the fast-narrowing line of sands and the ever-growing sea, as the tide crept up in infinite lines of dads water and white breakers, with a continuous moaning roar—now louder, now softer—as the land-wind freshened or fell. Here colour lingered late, in lines of yellow, white, and grey. As colour died here also, and the ducks began to come in, like bullets, from the sea, a sound came across the flats bite the sound of a ship passing in the night. It was the rising of the whole body of the geese, and the measured beats of their four hundred pairs of wings. When once in mid-air they came on "singing "—jubilantes ordine—with calls as if a band of musicians with flutes and oboes were passing across the sky. As they reached the sand- hills, and rose high above their crests, the dusky lines were just discernible against the darkened sky, while right and left invisible companies sang the song of returning, over the waters of the bay.
The morning flight of the geese is not made in a compact body ; the birds leave the sands in companies, ranging from a pair to forty or fifty, and reach the marshes just before sun- rise. Even so, they are later in entering the marshes than the ducks in leaving them for the lake. Apparently the geese are only learning the habit of early hours which has already become a second nature to the ducks, though the precaution of roosting on the sandbank, when they would be equally safe in the preserved marshes, is an inherited habit of caution. Their long wait in the marsh at night before taking wing is obviously an expedient to avoid danger. The flock seen by the writer were clearly ready and anxious to leave an hour before they ventured to do so. But geese are long-lived birds, and do not neglect the lessons of experience.
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