Well, goodbye summer – such as you were – and hello geese, as these truly wild voyagers fly in from their Arctic breeding grounds.You'll see them crossing our skies in long, wavering skeins and hear their haunting cries as they commute between grazing grounds. If you're lucky you might spot them feeding within earshot of the Cartford, either side of Wyre. Being a non-shooting man I'm not in favour of killing them but local sportsmen know that my conscience can be cheaply bought with a brace of oven-ready geese and a few Bramley apples. I'm a martyr to hypocrisy.Some years ago a Cartford customer presented me with a newly-shot pink-footed goose. I thanked him but wondered about his knowing smirk. I roasted the bird for two hours. When I tested it it bent the fork. I roasted it for two more hours – and two more – then gave up. Experts reckon that 360,000 pink-footed geese spend each winter in Britain. Out of this 360,000 I was lumbered with a great granddaddy of a bird, that must have needed a chair lift and half a tube of Fiery Jack to get it airborne above the Arctic tundra.And the sportsman still smirks when he sees me coming.
