More about Brent Geese..

As I mentioned before, on Saturday we met some people from a writers circle who were reading poems at Castle Espie. Reading the poems was to welcome the geese back to Strangford Lough. And there are a lot of geese to welcome back...



Up to eighty-five percent of the world population of Light- bellied Brents, congregate in Strangford Lough in October. Which is why we are visiting Castle Espie once or twice a week, to see the birds arrive. It is a wonderful sight to see.
In the autumn of 2007, almost thirty thousand Light-bellied Brent Geese were counted in Strangford Lough. However they don't all stay, as by early winter they will have spread down the Irish coastline.


Now I have a treat for you! A little poem..

This one is by a very special nine year old girl. She visits me most days, loves drawing pictures, making cards, jewellery, and writing little poems. She wrote this for me, as she knows I love birds. I love it, hope you do too...


I'm Free

I am free
like a bird in the sky
soaring high
soaring low
like a bow in your hair
I am free

By Hannah T.

Albino Hedgehog

I've seen a white deer before, and now a white hedgehog! Albino hedgehogs are quite rare - only one in ten thousand hedgehogs are born like this.



Here is another poem we heard at Castle Espie...


Sandpiper (Elizabeth Bishop)

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

- Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn't tell you which.
His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,

looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.

The Wild Geese.....

Today was a perfect autumn day. The kind of day to go bird watching at Castle Espie near Comber, County Down. And that's what we did.
From the Brent hide overlooking Strangford Lough, we saw at least five hundred Brent geese, eighty Eider ducks and ten Little egrets. Thousands more Brents and Whooper swans are expected here within the next few weeks, where they will stay for the winter.
The wood at Castle Espie was full of Robins, Blue tits, Great tits, Coal tits, Goldfinches and Goldcrests today. And the newly restored Lime Kiln Observatory, is another good place to watch the Brent geese on the lough.
It was while we were in the Lime Kiln Observatory that something quite unexpected happened. A nice lady introduced herself and her friend as members of a writers circle, and asked if she could read us this poem........


The Wild Geese (Wendell Berry)

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.