The barnacle goose's odd name comes from a twelfth-
century myth that this bird actually grew underwater from a
barnacle, then floated off, and somehow flew to the surface of
the water like some feathered mollusc after the hot summer
months. Even though this is just some made-up nonsense,
incredibly, this fantasy lasted more than five hundred years,
and only really died out in the twentieth century.
The fact is, ancient chroniclers just had no idea about bird
migration. They couldn't explain why the birds were seen in
the winter, and then just seemed to disappear every summer.
Where on earth did they go to lay their eggs?
Barnacle geese like to raise their young when
temperatures start soaring in the high Arctic of either
Greenland or Svalbard, that far-northerly group of islands
which is part of Norway. In the autumn, they all begin the
long journey to their wintering grounds on the island of
Islay, off the north-west coast of Scotland, and to parts of
Ireland. Their other favourite hangout is the Solway Firth. I
remember grinning foolishly with delight one holiday there
as a noisy flock of around forty-thousand barnacle geese
whooshed in an arc over my head, and landed in the field
where I stood. This particular colony had just arrived from
Svalbard, apparently, a distance of nearly 1,700 miles. This
trek is yet another perverse yet awe-inspiring feat. Could you
make your way from the Arctic Circle to your house? Just
using the stars, the land and the magnetic field of the earth?
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