This place would look beautiful to anyone, but after a journey to the roof of the world and back, it seems more glorious than anywhere else on the planet. We’ve reached a fine and lofty lake on the Tibetan plateau after flying here from Assam. If you fail to gasp in wonder at this information, pray consult your atlas.
Monday
See now? There’s a problem with our journey, and it’s called the Himalaya. We can’t fly round it, and we can’t fly under it, so we take the only option left and fly over it. There was the Barun Glacier below as a dozen of us flew in a tight skein, a peloton of honking geese telling each other to keep the formation tight and take your turn at the front or we’ll never reach Tibet. That was just below Mount Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth at a shade under 28,000ft.
Tuesday
We’re recovering well, my partner and I. As always, we made the journey at night. There are two issues with such dizzying heights: the thin air and the thin air. Thin air is (a) hard to breathe in and (b) hard to flap in. You can’t get proper value for a wingbeat because there’s so little to push against. But the air is a shade thicker at night and we exploit every marginal gain we possibly can. We do it all in one go: seven hours to heaven and back.
Wednesday
A good feeding day: green growing grasses are restoring us to ourselves. Later, as we roosted for the night, my partner and I remembered the old tales of a time of ease and innocence, when there were no mountains there to impede us on our annual northward journey: the ante-montane times when happy geese lived in a world without care. It really was like that once, you know. Or so they say.
Thursday
How high do we go? Just as high as we need to. Low to the ground, so the wind reflected off the up-slopes gives us a smidgeon more buoyancy: another marginal gain. Our breathing is deeper and more efficient than the average goose’s, our blood better at carrying oxygen, our wing area slightly larger relative to weight. Believe me, we need every advantage we can get.
Friday
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Naturally, we all discuss the journey in depth afterwards. It’s a major topic of conversation. How high did you go? Oh, 23,000ft without a doubt; I tell you, gander, we were flying up there. There are always some who say they flew over Everest, 29,032ft. Maybe they did, but my partner and I have made the journey together 15 times and that’s enough material for boasting to last for a lifetime.
Saturday
And now for the reason for this, the journey of journeys. It’s time to settle down in this fine colony beside this beautiful lake and raise another brood of high flyers. Grow up and be strong, little ones. The sky’s the limit.
Bar-headed goose CV
Lifespan 20 years or so
Eating habits If the grass has been ploughed up, wheat, barley and rice
Hobbies Altitude
Sexual preferences Fidelity
How to Fly: Taking Wing with Birds, Bats, Insects and Humans by Simon Barnes (Bloomsbury, £22) is out on 7 May. Order a copy at The Observer Shopfor £18.70. Delivery charges may apply.
Photograph by Albazil/Alamy