Avoiding barnacles and blistering cold
Over the festive break I struggled to find the time to visit the foreshore, but thankfully, just after the New Year, I managed to schedule in a morning flight at the local bay. It had been unseasonably mild and the car thermometer was showing 2°C. This time last year I visited the same bay and it was -8°C.
As I pulled off the public road on to the farm track, I noticed the flicker of head torches ahead. As I got closer, four wader-clad wildfowlers left the track and headed through the woods, walking in the direction of the neighbouring marsh. I parked up and began to second-guess myself — perhaps they knew something that I didn’t. After all, I was yet to shoot a goose this season.
“The silence
