A Monthly Publication

Dave Hawkins, Visitor officer, Titchwell Marsh RSPB

 What is a Pinkie Breakfast I can hear you asking? Well here, in northwest Norfolk, we are blessed with one of the best avian spectacles in the world; that is the dawn flight of thousands of pink-footed geese leaving their dawn roost on the Wash.

Pink-footed geese breed in Iceland and Greenland and come to the UK for the winter. As I write in mid September, the first arrivals of the year are making landfall high over our local beaches; their ‘wink wink’ calls being a sure sign that winter is just around the corner.

By mid October, they will be here in their tens of thousands and by mid November they will have settled into their daily routines. Daylight hours are spent out in the local fields, initially hoovering up any left over grain from the harvest but as winter takes hold they begin to feed on left over and rotting root crops, particularly sugar beet tops. After feeding and as dusk approaches, they gather in huge flocks before eventually flying out to safe roosting areas on the mudflats of The Wash. At dawn from the beach at Snettisham RSPB, you can see them leave the roost in enormous flocks flying low overhead in ever changing  ‘v’ shaped squadrons; calling with wings-a-whirring against the background of the orange sky and the rising sun. Awesome!

This year we are running seventeen guided walks throughout November, December and January to witness the spectacle followed by a hearty breakfast at the Poppyfields garden centre in Snettisham. To book on the Pinkie Breakfast walks, please call Titchwell RSPB on 01485 210779 or for more details please visit www.rspb.org.uk/snettisham and click on events. Booking is essential.