A Charm of Goldfinches and Other Wild Gatherings by Matt Sewell

Author:Matt Sewell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2017-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

A Charm of Goldfinches

TINKLING LIKE THE trinket charms on a lady’s bracelet, goldfinches are easy to identify in the winter as they gather in multitudes: a merry band of red-faced, golden birds alighting in the treetops, singing, playing, and doing whatever finches do to keep warm. So utterly charming, they have certainly cast a spell over me.

A Skein of Geese

WHEN GEESE ARE padding about on webbed feet or chasing you for scraps of bread, they are known as a gaggle, which, although quite obvious and sweet, is also quite apt. More impressive, though, when they are sighted high in the autumn sky, they soar onward in the wavering wedge of a skein—a collective noun that comes from an old French word for “V formation.” It really is an uplifting spectacle and awesome to think these birds fly like this for hundreds of miles above rough seas. As an example, the barnacle geese who winter in the UK are from Svalbard and Greenland: that’s quite a return trip! Before the magic of migration was understood, nobody had seen the geese breed in Britain, so it was believed that they flew inland from where they had been born at sea as barnacles floating on driftwood. Hence the name “barnacle goose.” Clever, right?

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