The hounds of heaven
On the first day of the new season, my wildfowling mucker, George Avery, and I watched skein upon skein of greylag and Canada geese flighting off the stubbles. The geese were drawn, seemingly irresistibly, to three huge inland lakes just down the Essex coast from my home.
These gravel pits are still quarried and as such are off-limits for shooters. They cover an area of about 40 acres and are an ideal resting place for the great grey armies that fill the skies like the “hounds of heaven”, as the incomparable Denys Watkins-Pitchford, aka BB , described them.
George and I have permission to wildfowl over a nearby tidal creek, which runs for about a mile and a half parallel to the gravel pits some half a mile to the south. Many of the skeins passed overhead and we estimated that well in excess of 1,000 birds were using the quarry area when we watched, awestruck, on
