Jottings for wildfowlers: letting the ducks pass on a September dawn and waiting for geese

As an avid schoolboy reader of Arthur Cadman’s wildfowling exploits, I recall him mentioning the dilemma he faced on foreshores where both ducks and geese were present. His predicament concerned whether to refrain from shooting ducks so that the geese would not become overly disturbed and, possibly, move to another area. As none of the foreshores I shot over at the time were visited by geese, I didn’t imagine that this conundrum would be one I’d ever have to consider.

Fifty years later it’s impossible to find an area without its own burgeoning population of Canada geese, with greylags not far behind and wandering skeins of pinkfeet venturing ever closer each season.

Back then, my local foreshores weren’t worth visiting until the full complement of wintering ducks had arrived, but nowadays it’s worth a trip, particularly for a morning flight, for a chance to bag a Canada or a greylag, and it was with this thought that I set my sights on a Saturday morning flight at the end of September.

A combined morning and tide flight

The weather forecast wasn’t the best, with “sunny intervals and a moderate breeze” promised. I elected to go in any case and arrived at the foreshore at 5.30am. Emerging from the Land Rover, with Chester and Toby in tow and my eyes adjusting to the light cast by the setting moon, I made out distant silhouettes of geese, around 100 of them, sitting on the lower reaches of the main channel. They sat in silence, so I couldn’t work out whether they were Canadas or greylags. Surprisingly, they stayed put as the three of us made our way, the best part of a mile, to the upper reaches of the river.

Low tide had been at 4am with high tide predicted for 10.26am, so we’d be in position for a combined morning and tide flight. The sky was partly cloudy, and it was still dark when we took up our position. With Arthur Cadman in mind, I decided to forgo chances at ducks in the half-light and wait for the geese to lift, which they usually do after daybreak.

Wigeon, teal and pintail at first light

I then heard a sound to gladden the heart of any wildfowler: wigeon! Distant whistles turned into a crescendo as flight after flight of wigeon poured over my head to seek out their resting places for the day. I contented myself with filming the noisy flocks on my smartphone, some flying only a few feet from our position.

The wigeon were joined by flights of quacking mallard, and the familiar rushing sound and a series of chirps gave away the presence of teal rocketing past. As the sky brightened and the tide rose, I made out the long, sleek shapes of pintail, flying higher than the melee of wigeon and mallard, and a few characteristic ga-ga-ga calls alerted me to the presence of shelduck out on the sands.

Moving to higher ground on the rising tide

The duck flight petered out, and the rising tide forced the dogs and me to move to higher ground to hide among some reeds. I spotted distant geese lifting, but all headed in the opposite direction along the coast, with only a few passing out of shot up the flooded channel.

Low-flying skeins over the far bank turned out to be brent, so a false alarm. Chester kept a beady eye on the geese while Toby, still relatively inexperienced, wagged his rudder enthusiastically at every passing goose, gull or wader.

A peregrine appeared in the morning sunshine, a tiercel, and I marvelled at his agility as I watched him stoop after redshanks, which hugged the waves to stay safe from his attacks. A flotilla of eider ducks swam past, followed by a brace of goosanders. Seven species of ducks and at least two species of geese made for a great morning’s armed birdwatching. We’ll be back again when we get a good sou’westerly gale and, fingers crossed, put something in the bag.

Gethin Jones is a keen wildfowler and rough shooter. He joined BASC (then WAGBI) at the age of 16, the day after he shot his first mallard.