I'm Glad I'm not a Barnacle Goose

Another beautiful sunny day again, lots of blue sky but still the chilly wind. A and I went to Pensthorpe, where there was lots of 'goose' activity, as the mating season gets under way.

This pretty Barnacle goose was one of a pair sitting close by to our coffee spot. Their name comes from an erroneous medieval notion that these geese hatched from barnacles each autumn.

Barnacle geese eat a lot of grass and it passes through their system quickly.  A study in the Netherlands found that wintering Barnacle Geese typically defecated 160 times a day!