Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

IF you were lucky, you may have heard the brent geese high up in the moonlit sky last month as they left Sussex. Eight thousand of these little black geese spend the winter in Chichester Harbour.

By The Newsroom

Published 31st Mar 2009, 16:58 BST

Updated 8th Jun 2018, 04:12 BST

Eight thousand of these little black geese spend the winter in Chichester Harbour.

The Wash has the highest winter population, of 20,000, followed by the Thames Estuary, which has 10,000. Another 10,000 birds use our local harbours from Portsmouth to Pagham, so a grand total of 18,000 cross the county at night bound for the Thames Estuary or Norfolk marshes on the first leg of the journey back to the Russian arctic by mid-May.

I have often wondered if they pass close to Gatwick or Heathrow.

With news that a gaggle of Canada geese seem to have stopped the engines on the Hudson river crash earlier this year, this may not be idle speculation.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette April 1