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The Meaning of Geese: A Thousand Miles in Search of Home

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While mainly fact and information focused there are some beautifully written lines throughout this and it’s a book that’s easy to read through in just a couple of sittings.

From his home in Norfolk, he has since had the privilege of working with wildlife and people on every continent. Pinks” do their summer moulting and breeding in Iceland and Greenland then head a thousand miles south to places likes Holkham, which they use as a coastal base for inland sorties to feed in beet fields – that is, if farmers have left anything for them. As the Covid lockdowns started, like so many people, his relationship with nature further changed and as everybody became isolated he explored the countryside looking for and learning about geese. Equally evident from the text is Nick’s depth of knowledge, of the geese and the other wildlife portrayed in this book, but also of the landscape in which he was born and raised.Chelsea Green Publishing is a 100% employee-owned leading publisher of books on the politics and practice of sustainable living. During a time when many people faced the prospect of little work or human contact, Nick followed the pinkfeet and brent geese that filled the Norfolk skies and landscape as they flew in from Iceland and Siberia.

in environmental management, both from the University of Oxford, Nick straddles the boundary between the arts and sciences and brings a love of the written word to communication about nature and the environment. Although the author’s encounters are presented through a season of watching geese, and made possible through the miles cycled on an ancient bicycle, don’t expect this to be your typical quest-based nature writing; it is much more than that. I've missed the joy of helping people learn to identify new species and witness our wildest natural spectacles. Twenty years on, Welsh’s auctioneer sleuth Rilke has another mystery to solve – his old mate washes up dead after tipping him off about a house clearance – but this time in a city pockmarked by Grindr, gentrification and a pandemic.Nick Acheson worked in South America and touring the world in conservationist and nature related work. To honour the geese’s great athletic migrations, Nick kept a diary of his sightings as well as the stories he discovered through the community of people, past and present, who loved them, too. Now he mostly stays close to home in North Norfolk, where he grew up and where generations of his family have lived and farmed, working for Norfolk Wildlife Trust and appreciating the flora and fauna on his doorstep. Still, I admire Acheson’s fervour: “I watch birds not to add them to a list of species seen; nor to sneer at birds which are not truly wild.

What emerges is a sense of shared passion, and a shared responsibility for the future of these birds. By November he has started to think like geese, to feel their overhead chatter vibrate in his chest.For WWF and other conservation NGOs, he worked with indigenous communities and national parks to develop ecotourism and sustainability projects. He is a committed campaigner on the environment, living as sustainably as is possible and contributing to a number of environmental initiatives, including Low Carbon Birding. The lovely people at Chelsea Green Publishing sent me an advanced copy and I've been savouring it over the past few weeks.

Participants in Nick's events have included Patrick Barkham, Simon Barnes, Kate Bradbury, Tim Dee, Roy Dennis, Mike Dilger, Jake Fiennes, Nick Gates, Matt Gaw, Dave Goulson, Melissa Harrison, Nick Hayes, Sam Lee, David Lindo, Benedict Macdonald, Erica McAlister, Dara McAnulty, Megan McCubbin, Professor Ian Newton, Chris Packham, Lev Parikian, Stephen Rutt, Anita Sethi and Brigit Strawbridge. He helped coordinate Wetlands International's twice-yearly Latin American wetland bird census, ringed thousands of birds on their migration through Bolivia, and was part of a pioneering project to ring James's flamingos at their breeding site in the High Andes.I learned a lot of information (Egyptian geese it turns out aren’t really geese and the Slimbridge bird sanctuary in England is responsible for Hawaiian geese not becoming extinct) as well as being horrified at the dangers of lead pellets, shooting practices and difficulties geese face. Nick has through his knowledge, passion and detailed descriptions put a winter visit firmly back onto the agenda. Many of us took up hobbies during the lockdowns - reading, gardening, DIY, baking sourdough and banana bread - but for Naturalist Nick Acheson, the pandemic inspired an epic adventure. Above all, it is the story of Nick Acheson’s love for the land in which he was born and raised, and for the wild geese that fill it with sound and spectacle every winter. Pink-footed geese descend on the Holkham Estate in their thousands, but there were smaller flocks and rarer types as well: from Canada and greylag to white-fronted and snow geese.

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