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Having seen a few Pinks on the marsh a couple of days beforehand and having heard reports of several hundreds on the fields at the back of the marsh I returned full of confidence (or is it hope?). This time I had my nine your old son Sam along with me, he was hoping for his first shot at a Pinkfoot.
Driving round the marsh we saw a few big lots of Pinks flighting into feed towards the west, it’s starting to look like the geese have started to arrive – better late than never! We pulled up at Cardurnock and once kitted up headed out onto the point, it was pretty windy and I thought we’d stand a chance of getting under the geese leaving the reserves and going back onto the roost.
 I placed Sam behind a low bit of bank, he was happy laid there with his little 20 bore, a flask and a bar of chocolate. I went just 20 yards away from him, he’s a good ‘fowler but he’s not yet had much experience with the thousands of Barnacles that may flight this marsh so I needed to be able to keep in close contact and warn him if they came. I settled myself down with my older dog Woodey, he’s just over a year old and seems to be shaping up as a decent ‘fowling dog – at least he now loves water which is a relief as at first he flatly refused to swim and looked at you with total distain if he got his paws wet! 
It doesn’t really matter how you try to tell the story of this flight, it fails to change the truth – a long wait saw us back to square one, no geese and no sight or sound of geese. Not to worry, good to be out and Sam had enjoyed his surroundings – it’s good for him to have the time to get a feel for the place. So empty handed it was back to the vehicle for the drive home, next week would be the full moon and we would be back and full of confidence for a major influx of birds.
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