the great fly by for a lot of migrating birds

Yes, a spectacular feature of the E coast isn’t it, Helen?

Years ago I worked for Doris Duke on her Somerville NJ estate. Her wildlife-friendly policies were so friendly that several thousand Canada Geese thought “Hm, good pickins here, why move?” So they stayed. All year round. It reached just about crisis proportions eventually – they would eat the hell out of all over-wintered crops on the farm, and until you have seen the guano of several thousand geese paddling about in a small paddock all winter, you do not know the meaning of green and slippery!

One time, Doris was at last persuaded that something had to be done if the farm were to survive. Since the prerequisite was being kind to goosy-woosy and money was no object, she actually had loads of staff chasing the fat flightless wonders around the estate with nets, until they could all be scrambled into trucks. They were then trundled up to her place in Rhode Island to be released in their wonderful new home.

Took ‘em almost five hours to stagger back to Joisey

And then there were the deer…