I started work there in early/mid 70′s – right at the start of them opening the site. The Curator at the time was the late Peter Gladstone, great Grandson of William Ewart Gladstone the Victorian PM. He was a great bloke – they were great times. We had nothing, just really dedicated people working for peanuts. I wasn’t paid by the Trust – I was engaged as the country’s first ManPower Services Commission employee. Basically, the Trust gave me a job (Graphic Designer) and the government picked up the tab. It was a great life – I designed their first kids mag, various exhibitions and whenever it was a nice day outside, I would announce to my boss that I would like to go and do some videoing with our brand new (donated by Sony) state of the art video camera. It was bloody huge! The battery alone was the size of a small car – and lifting it was an exercise in rupturism…

I met Sir Peter Scott a few times – he even drew me a picture of a goose once – which I still have. I also met my future wife there.

The reason for the centre being there at all was because for thousands of years, the Pinkfooted Goose has migrated there from Iceland, Greenland and Spitzbergen. At times, over 70% of the world’s population are centred in a tiny area of the Lancashire plain, feeding on missed carrots from the recently dug up harvest.

Sometimes, there are so many in the sky, it looks just amazing, thousands of geese in hundreds of V-formations… The Luftwaffe on steroids.

What is really weird is that they always seemed to arrive on the same day every year – September 15th.

PS: I’m watching Delia and thinking of you – hummus and greek pitta bread. Wine and friends. Mmmm

Peter, thanks for the meme link, I’ll check it out. Good to hear from you.

There is some more info on this subject here from 2003, so this has been discussed over the last five years:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030326073630.htm
Climate change could also affect the abundance and diversity of birds. The idea is that warmer winters could increase the survival of birds that live in an area year-round, which could give migratory birds more competition for resources such as food and nest sites when they return to breed in the spring – and that in turn could decrease the total number of migratory birds as well as the number of species.

Ultimately, warmer winters will probably decrease the number of long-distance migratory bird species in Central Europe. In addition, the birds’ migratory behavior will probably evolve. The migratory behavior of bird populations can change in only a few generations, and several populations of wrens, skylarks and other short-distance migrants have stopped migrating in the last 20 years.