By Brian Melican
With that characteristically knowing, almost haughty expression fixed on their faces, two greylag geese come gliding past through the still water. You never used to see them here at this time of year, but over the last decade or so, they’ve been staying in ever larger numbers: with winter frosts now a rarity in Hamburg and the grass they feed on here hardly ever covered in snow, there is no longer much reason for them to trade the comparative safety of a well-ordered urban park for the vicissitudes of a long flight south. Who can blame them?