Followin’ Bird

By Janet Baldey

The older I get the more the past overshadows the present, particularly when I sleep. Then my dreams, a cinema-show of memories, are so clear and vivid they exhaust me which is probably why I nap during the day. True to form, suddenly tired I close my eyes only to wake and find my bed swaying underneath me. I see a ripple of reflected, water flickering on polished wood and remember where I am. I’m back in the past again but not in London facing a draining tube journey as I battle my way to work;  I’m in Leigh on Sea on the barge my father built, ‘Followin’ Bird,’ affectionately known as ‘Bird’.

         This is his second and most loved home. Not luxurious, just one big room divided into compartments but my father knows how to make things comfortable and we have all we need. A small galley, living space with a wood-burning stove, bathroom and two bedrooms. A cosy retreat for all seasons. After the madness that is London it promises peace; although perhaps not today.  I look at the calendar, August Bank Holiday and last nights’ forecast promised a high summers’ day with temperatures in the early 30’s.  It’s quiet at the moment but very soon a steady stream of trains from Fenchurch Street will slide into Leigh Station and disgorge load after load of day trippers all anxious to escape the heat of London and make the most of the sea breeze. But we don’t mind.  In old Leigh the High Street and Strand Wharf will be a moving river of bodies and the local pubs will be packed but we’ll lunch on board and raise our mugs in a silent toast to ‘Bird’, glad to have a refuge from the crowd.

         My favourite month to be in Leigh is October with its clinging early mists that often herald fine days. October in Leigh is when a magical thing happens.  The Brent geese arrive, and I shall always remember one very special morning when there was no mist and the air was already warm.   I decided to drink my morning cuppa on deck and as I sipped my tea and thought of nothing, I stared into the distance, past the yachts, with their masts at odd angles, lying at anchor on the mud, towards the horizon where a black line separated the sky from the sea. As I watched, the line thickened and very soon a dark stain was spreading towards us.  I felt my heart beat faster.  Dad must see this.  I turned towards the hatchway.

         “Dad,” I called. “The geese are coming.”

         I heard the scramble of movement from inside the barge and a few seconds later up he popped like a genie out of a bottle. He raised his glasses towards the moving cloud and I knew that he was smiling although most of his face was obscured by binoculars and beard.

         “Here, they come.” He announced. “I thought it might be today.  You can almost set your watch by them.”

         We stood and watched the weary flock gliding towards the water. At last, after flying over 2,500 miles, all the way from Siberia deep within the Arctic Circle, braving icy storms and wild seas on their way, they had reached their overwintering grounds. Here, at Leigh on Sea, they would spend the next few months fattening up on Eelgrass before heading off again around February time, after stripping the estuary bare of their favourite food.  Small (about the size of a large mallard) brown and tough was how my father described them, and though they certainly needed to be.

         After a while we descended for breakfast knowing that as the sea filled the estuary, the tide would bring them in by the hundreds. By nightfall, our barge would be surrounded by sturdy feathered bodies bobbing on the waves and we’d retire lulled by the sound of their contented chuckling.  In fact, that sound, the gossip of the geese, turned out to be one of my fondest memories and when they deserted us in early spring, they left behind an eerie silence.

         Of course, Followin Bird has long gone now and I haven’t visited Leigh for years.  I’m told that the numbers of Brent geese visiting our shores has drastically reduced. The effects of global warming, loss of habitat, the incursion of man – the sad litany of life these days - is taking its toll. It saddens me to think that the best years are passed and I wish it wasn’t so. Although my memory only stretches from early this century, back then in good years, the flocks were so big they seemed like froth on the water. But even then their numbers fluctuated. We were told, by a member of the RSPB, that if the lemming harvest failed, for reasons unknown, the Arctic foxes and owls would turn to goslings to supplement their diet, with catastrophic results for the flock.  I know next to nothing about lemmings, no doubt they are nice enough little animals, but each year I used to hope they’d sacrifice their lives for the sake of the Brent geese.

         I awake with a start, into the real world this time; someone is knocking at my door. It can only be my carer, coming to check that I‘m still alive. One day I won’t be and although my head tells me it’s impossible, there is an insistent whisper coming from the region of my heart. What if, it murmurs; when your soul leaves your body you are transported to the place where you were happiest? If that were the case, I’d go to Leigh.  I’d take flight with the geese to the Siberian tundra and spend its brief summer surrounded by wildflowers and glistening pools of water. My father would also be there and once more we’d stand side by side and listen to the burble of the geese.

Copyright Janet Baldey

          I am told that over the past twelve years their numbers have been steadily declining, but certainly when we were there, in the early 2,000’s, the sea would froth with them.