To a better place?

Tremendous cackling on my way to pick up the morning paper so took a shot of these geese heading south to the English border. It was still quite dull before sunrise but the sky has come out (helped by a little tweaking) looking much brighter than it was. Seen this quite a few times in the last few days and I'm not sure why they're all going south. I thought they went south in Autumn and came back north in Spring. Perhaps my meagre knowledge of bird migration patterns is up the spout or perhaps they know something about climate change ahead.