Pinkfeet fly over

There's nothing quite so evocative of September as the calls of the geese as they fly in from the North in their thousands. This morning the sky was full of skeins of 'Pinkfeet'- hundreds of birds in long straggling V-formations high in the sky coming in from the coast over Glendale, calling excitedly to each other. There's always a little thrill whenever you re-connect with that magical sound! True, the the swallows are still busy flying around the house feeding up for their long migration south, but the arrival of the geese suggests we're only days away from the departure of the hirundines.
               Earlier in the week, it was the Barnacle Geese which were moving through, briefly stopping over in their thousands near Lindisfarne en route to the Solway.