Getting Along With Geese!

As many of you know, Brockhampton has become a haven for Canada geese every Spring and Summer.

Unfortunately, these guests have really made themselves at home and tend to create so much mess that the bottom lawn becomes unusable, just when we want to make use of our beautiful grounds.

We will be trialling humane ways to prevent the geese from feeling quite so at home. Jerry Dunne has kindly agreed to trial the use of wire fencing. Installing barriers such as short fencing or planting vegetation around shorelines can make areas unattractive to geese because it removes walking access from water to feeding or resting locations.

Jerry has installed a simple thin line wire around the perimeter of the lake adjoining the garden edge. It is almost invisible unless you are close to it and does not affect the smaller wildfowl (mallards) because they can go under the wire. It acts as a barrier to the geese because they are large and need to jump onto and off the grass, and because they are large, they won’t just fly over it as it wastes a lot of energy and effort.

We hope this experiment will be a success and allow us to reclaim our lower lawn.