Poet-in-residence Damaris West delights in skeins of geese in poetry and prose.

There can be fewer sounds more uplifting and spine-shivering than that of a skein of wild geese passing overhead at night. It isn’t an exclusively Scottish phenomenon, but it is particularly associated with many parts of Scotland at certain times of the year.

The majority of Canada geese are resident all year round in Scotland, inhabiting especially the west coast estuaries. This means that when they fly, they are likely to just be moving from one feeding ground to another. Other breeds of geese are migrants from where they spend April to September in more northerly places like Iceland and Greenland, and they arrive in Scotland in the autumn, departing again in the spring.

The barnacle goose favours the Solway Firth or the Inner Hebridean island of Islay, which latter is also the preferred spot of the white-fronted goose. Pink-footed geese are particularly numerous in the Montrose basin, and greylag geese overwinter in Orkney or the Firth of Forth.

Migration is a wonder in itself. No one is absolutely certain how creatures of the air and ocean are able to navigate their way around the globe, but scientists have shown that young geese are taught the routes by accompanying their parents.

Research has also demonstrated that geese have adapted their flight paths to take into account the warmer conditions caused by climate change. Strangely, this is especially true of younger geese who cannot have experienced much of a shift to nudge them into altering their course.

So, why do geese so often make their journeys at night? First of all, why not? They aren’t guided by visual stimuli; daytime is perhaps better employed grazing when eyesight is of importance. But there are some significant advantages to night travelling. For one thing, wings generate heat when flying and the night is cooler. For another, there are no thermals to create confusing cross-currents. Lastly, there are none of the predators whose eyes depend on daylight for securing prey, nor indeed is there much other traffic in the skies.

The classic formation of a skein of geese is the v-shape, often lopsided but always with a clear leader at the front. The reason behind this is not in scientific doubt; it’s the same reason why a ‘peleton’ in the Tour de France works as a team to push forward a winner from their ranks rather than each cyclist acting alone.

Geese fly in a way so as to take advantage of the uplift created by the goose in front, and this saves energy, the v-shape being a natural result. The leader will tire more quickly than the others, but the geese take turns and the whole flock is able to travel around 70% further before landing for a complete rest thanks to their combined efforts.

Geese even take care of one of their number who is stricken – shot, perhaps – and falls wounded out of the sky. Two other geese have been reported to fly down to keep it company on the ground until it either dies or recovers sufficiently to accompany them back into flight.

Sometimes it’s just the one goose that is seen to be urging the fallen one into renewed efforts, and this will almost certainly be the goose’s mate. Geese are monogamous and pair for life, with one of the strongest bonds in the animal kingdom. When one of the pair dies, the other mourns it, exhibiting human-like signs of grief such as hanging of the head and loss of appetite. It may eventually mate again, or it may mourn until it also dies, which is likely to be unnaturally soon owing to a reduced awareness of the environment and a consequent vulnerability to accidents such as flying into high-tension cables. 

Geese honk continually in flight to assist them in staying together but also probably out of companionship. This is what creates the other-worldly sound, so reminiscent of colder days coming – like the howling of wolves would have been in more primitive times.

Greylags are reputedly the noisiest of the geese. However all breeds are capable of uttering a variety of different sounds, from peeps while still inside the shell, to contented grunts, to outraged squawks when defending nests or young.

Canada geese are particularly aggressive. Large and striking with their black foreheads (as distinct from the barnacle goose’s white forehead and the brent goose’s all-black head), they were introduced into St James’ Park in London in the late seventeenth century as part of King James II’s collection of waterfowl. Since then they have put their feet under the table all over the UK.

They are unwelcome in certain places where their droppings foul the bank to excess, and bear in mind that a Canada goose can produce as much as a kilo of excrement per day and it has more the appearance of a dog’s faeces than a bird’s. Apart from being simply disgusting, it carries parasites such as E. coli, salmonella and coccidia which can infect children and pets. If the geese can’t be driven away to find somewhere more remote or less offensive, they may be culled by people with the necessary licence.

Canada geese moult their flight feathers around June and at this time of the year may be unable to take to the air for up to six weeks, so this is clearly when they are most vulnerable. They regain the power of flight at about the same time as their goslings are fledging, so an unprotected younger generation might be effectively culled as well.

Other species of goose, such as the bean goose which migrates from the Russian subarctic to pass the winter on the Slamannan Plateau in Falkirk, are relatively few in number. They are another kind of grey goose, a group so called to distinguish it from the black geese, of which Canada, barnacle and brent geese are members.

All geese can interbreed, and even without the existence of hybrids, scientists don’t always agree as to where one species ends and another begins. For example, bean geese are seen either as two different species (both of them rare) according to whether they breed in the taiga or the tundra, or simply as one species.

Geese are the stuff of myth and legend as well as their mass movements marking out the changes of the seasons. Barnacle geese with their white heads and black necks look so like the reciprocally named goose barnacles that they were believed as late as the eighteenth century to emerge fully formed from them in the spring, this accounting for their sudden appearance on the scene as grown adults.

Legend also states that some Celtic Christians used the wild goose rather than the traditional dove as a symbol for the Holy Spirit. This lends the religious symbol a somewhat different character, suggesting an untamed force rather than a peaceful entity. Perhaps if one thinks of the wild skein in these terms it helps to account for the tingle and the sense of wonder.