The Brent geese are now grazing the flat fields again on Tollesbury Wick Marshes.
They've been through a busy breeding season since they left us at the end of March. Triggered by the lengthening daylight hours and by rising spring temperatures, the geese flocks left their Essex wintering grounds in March and headed for Siberia. Flying at night and resting by day, the migrating geese made leisurely progress in short stages through Holland. In places where the grazing is good they would linger for a week at a time. By May they would be in Denmark.
Migrating wildfowl conserve energy by flying in the classic 'V' shape. Apart from the bird at the tip of the formation, every bird flies in the slipstream of the bird in front: it creates extra lift, and the bird uses less energy in maintaining speed and keeping station. On a journey of 3000 miles conserving energy is a life or death matter. Older, experienced  birds, who have made the journey in the  past, take in turns the physically harder job at the tip of the arrow.
The flocks instinctively search for marshland, river deltas, coastal  grassland and even farmland to rest and  feed, before pushing on at dusk. They  skirt the Baltic Sea to Lithuania, into western Russia. At Archangel, they are still only halfway with 200 miles before they cross the Arctic Circle into their  true home, the tundra.
1500 miles to go. The geese pass over the the tundra stretching to both horizons  for day after day.  It's barren, flat waterlogged; and even in early June, largely covered by ice and snow.  Coastal tundra fringing the Arctic Ocean encircles the North Pole from Norway eastwards through Lapland, Russia, Asia, the United States and Canada. In Siberia, immense north  flowing rivers - Yenisey, Lena, Ob and  others - have created countless coastal islands, deltas and peninsulas. The Brent geese from Tollesbury finally drop down onto the largest - the Taimyr   Peninsula, their birthplace.
It is an immense and fearsome place, still locked in the last Ice Age. For man, beast and bird it is one of the most  hostile environments on earth. Hundreds of miles inside the Arctic Circle, it is sheathed in ice and snow for  most of the year: its coastline is sea ice.  When the Brent geese arrive there is  little green to be seen, but by late June  the tundra has thawed and resembles a  waterlogged sponge. Myriads of pools lie among the low, sedge-type  vegetation with superb wild flowers  like the Arctic poppy, glacier buttercup, Alpine dryas and purple saxifrage. Over 5000 square miles of Taimyr are zapovednik-preserved for nature. Only a few hardy fur trappers and  hunters share the tundra with 16 species of mammals, including Polar bear, Musk ox, lemming and over 500,000 reindeer. Fifty species of bird make great migration journeys to nest on the ground in the treeless landscape with the Brent geese.  They include Red-breasted goose, Grey and Golden plover. The Arctic summer lasts just two months: August sees the first frosts of autumn. In a short, frantic nesting season, young birds are aided by an explosion of insect life in the tundra pools and the 24 hours of daylight to make rapid growth; by a scarcity of human and natural predators, and by awesome amounts of empty space in which to roam. There is always a downside. Breeding in the Arctic can be a huge success, or it can be an almost total failure. A poor Summer may fail to melt the snow. Winter could suddenly arrive a month early.   Bird migration is behaviour that has evolved over great spans of time. For Brent geese to be still with us suggests migration for them and for many other species is a great benefit. Mortality on long journeys is great, but the survivors that breed are the strongest and the most adaptable, and those qualities are passed on to their offspring. Everyone anxiously scanned the flocks of Brent geese as they first arrived back from the Arctic. By identifying the young birds in their slightly different plumage, it looks as if the indefatigable Brents have had their most successful breeding season for a number of years, with between 25% to 35% of flocks being made up of this years young.

Laurie Forsyth, Warden,Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve.