Thorpe Marshes in the 1960s

Chris Durdin, NWT Volunteer and naturalist

John Rushmer, now aged 93, farmed what is now NWT Thorpe Marshes in the 1960s. His memories were crystal clear when I went to see him to pick his brains about the recent history of my local nature reserve.

Marshland plants including yellow flag irises
have returned to Thorpe Marshes (Chris Durdin)

As a tenant elsewhere of landowners Crown Point Estate, John was offered the chance to put the unmanaged ‘Whitlingham Marshes’, as he knew them, into productive grazing. They were a mix of willowherb, sedge and other rough vegetation, plus reed in one corner, he remembers: much as for some of the ungrazed areas now.

He surveyed the ditches and organised their restoration, essentially the existing ditch network plus continuations into what is now the gravel pit, St Andrew’s Broad. A diesel drainage pump was installed adjacent to the existing tidal flap and the pump ran through the summer months. Summer water levels would therefore have been lower than today’s more natural levels.

There was a curious accident from that. The drainage pump’s inlet pipe in a ditch was raised when need be by a pulley set on a wooden tripod. One of the legs of that tripod took root and accounts for the poplar tree near the tidal flap.

All of Thorpe Marshes was ploughed, turned over a foot deep. Then it was disced, rolled and seeded, mostly rye grass plus some white clover and cocksfoot grass. That surprised me: the rich mix of marshland plants when I first knew the site in the 1980s suggested to me that the marshes near the railway line had never been ploughed. Some nitrogen was applied to ‘improve’ the sward; however, John told me, no herbicides were used. That must have helped grazing marsh plants to reappear later. Added to that, the RSPB’s restoration project at Lakenheath Fen showed how resilient a marshland seedbank can be if the right conditions are restored, in that case to fields that held poplar trees and later went under arable cultivation, including carrots.

The NWT’s British White cattle grazed Thorpe Marshes in 2017 (Chris Durdin)

From 1961, 80-100 Friesian cows were on Thorpe Marshes from May to September. These were all for milking, which was done with a mobile unit called a milking bail, sited for the summer on a concrete pad that remains in place.

I have been used to older, traditional breeds for the grazing of the marshes. I told John about the Lincoln Reds, Red Polls, Dexters and British Whites there in recent years. Friesians have a reputation of being less robust.

Were Friesians OK, “on that rough old marsh?” I asked.

“It wasn’t rough when we farmed it. Not a weed to be seen,” John said.

The Friesians were there until about 1969. Flooding and waterlogging meant the initial flush of good grass didn’t last. From about 1970 to 1975 there was grazing with mixed or beef cattle on site, allowing a little over a decade for a natural recovery to the conditions I discovered when I moved to the area in 1987.

In today’s terms, ploughing of marshland would certainly be regarded as environmentally damaging. That doesn’t mean I am judging John harshly: his initiative then was of its time. What we learn from these snippets of local history is that nature can be remarkably good at recovery, given the right conditions.

Chris Durdin leads monthly wildlife walks at NWT Thorpe Marshes. Details of monthly walks on http://www.honeyguide.co.uk/thorpemarshes.htm

Cranes and Hickling Broad

Common Crane Photo: David Tipling

It would be stretching it a bit to claim that that the cranes of east Norfolk are grateful that NWT has launched an appeal to buy the freehold of Hickling nature reserve, but they should be. Hickling played a role in the return of the crane to the UK as a breeding bird, and it continues to be a key site for them.

Two cranes came to Hickling on 13^th September 1979. It was these that prompted a phone call about the “Biggest bloody herons” that a local farmer had ever seen. Taking that call was John Buxton of the neighbouring Horsey Estate, which is where the cranes stayed, first attempted to nest in 1981 and raised the first crane chick in the UK for 400 years. Once a tightly held secret, this is now a well-known part of the cranes history, told by John and me in the book The Norfolk Cranes’ Story.  

It would, perhaps, have been a neater story if the cranes had bred at Hickling rather than Horsey. It was from Hickling that there is a written record of a payment for a ‘young Pyper crane’ in 1543. That is generally interpreted as the only – and last – indication of cranes breeding in East Anglia, until their recent return. That full circle was not completed until 2003 when cranes nested at Hickling again. They have been there ever since and Hickling remains the place to go to if you want to see cranes, not least as Horsey is a private estate. 

Hickling Broad by Richard Osbourne

There is a Hickling anecdote that didn’t make it into the book. Secrecy may have been the best way to safeguard the cranes in the early years, but they could be tricky birds to hide. This dilemma was illustrated by the visit of a group of conservation students to Hickling nature reserve in about 1985. Richard Hobbs, then the Trust’s Conservation Officer, was with them. John Buxton from Horsey was also there, with Christopher Cadbury from Hickling who was a generous benefactor of Hickling reserve. One of the students heard the sound of calling cranes coming from nearby Horsey. He pointed them out with some confidence as he came from Sweden and heard cranes there regularly. John and Christopher simply denied it, and the student looked perplexed. Richard, a leading figure in the local conservation scene, knew about the cranes’ return to Horsey, and after John and Christopher departed confirmed to the student that he was right.

I don’t get to Hickling as often as I should, but the place and its wildlife have a knack for creating memorable experiences. Inspiring your family to take up your interest in wildlife isn’t always easy. At last it seems to have worked with grown-up son Jim, and last winter we made that afternoon visit that you’ve probably done too, to Stubb Mill. The distant harriers over the marshes were great, and there was a grey blob that through a telescope was just about recognisable as a crane. But it was on the walk back to the car park that we had a proper crane encounter. Three came over in the half light, calling as they flew. I could almost hear the penny drop – now I get it about Dad and cranes.

I returned to Hickling in January, this time to meet the team planning a BBC Countryfile programme from east Norfolk. John Blackburn from NWT Hickling was there, and it was enjoyable to share the recce visit, including the sights and sounds of cranes on a gloomy day. The sun came out for filming in the following week, adding to a wonderful opportunity to showcase both the cranes’ story and Hickling.

Chris Durdin usually blogs about NWT ThorpeMarshes  but is also co-author of The Norfolk Cranes’ Story. More about the book on http://www.norfolkcranes.co.uk/

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Thorpe Marshes: dragonflies and damselflies

Chris Durdin, NWT Volunteer

Pretty damsels

Willow Emerald Damselfly (Chris Durdin)

Lurking with binoculars to get good views of pretty damsels seems, at first hearing, a little suspicious. But the explanation at Thorpe Marshes is innocent enough: the object of my attention is the Willow Emerald Damselfly.

It’s also known as the Western Willow Spreadwing and the first photo shows where the spreadwing name comes from. The second photo, below, shows how the urge to mate can lead to confusion: it’s a male Common Emerald grasping a female Willow Emerald.

Common Emerald male and Willow Emerald female (Derek Longe)

The distribution map for Willow Emerald in the Atlas of Dragonflies in Britain and Ireland, published in 2014, shows lots of spots in coastal Suffolk and Essex and just the odd one in east Norfolk. But that’s already well out of date: they are in much of Broadland and records are increasing in west Norfolk, the Fens and as far west as Northamptonshire.

That was the gist of the story I explained to last week’s group on the monthly walk at Thorpe Marshes, perfectly timed, I hoped, for this late season damselfly. We know the best spots to see them, on perches over open ditches. Some surface vegetation, such as frogbit, is fine, but once ditches get clogged up with lesser water parsnip and other vegetation the damsels move.

However the best time to see a Willow Emerald here is during the afternoon on a still, sunny day. This morning it was partly cloudy and breezy and the star of the show I had talked up was out of sight.

Orange balsam (Chris Durdin)

Still, the supporting cast was strong. There were blue-eyed Migrant Hawkers, Ruddy and Common Darter dragonflies; various butterflies and other insects were enjoyed along with a host of late summer flowers such as hemp agrimony, water mint and orange balsam. This last species is less dominant than Himalayan balsam, which happily is not established here.

We’d done the circuit round the marshes and, around noon, returned to a favoured spot near the start of the walk. The sun was out now and there it was: a male Willow Emerald on territory, and helpfully still enough to get my telescope onto it. The walks always seem to have a mix of regulars and new attendees and it was especially nice to hear the appreciation of the new people of this fine view. Comments showed that they could see why I am little bit in love with this pretty damsel.

There are certainly 20 Willow Emeralds at Thorpe Marsh this year and probably quite a lot more. After the group had gone, two of us watched one from the railway bridge where you enter the reserve. This one was jostling with a Common Darter for a favoured perch. The Willow Emeralds tend to move if a bigger hawker comes close as they may be prey, but it was striking how similar in size this large damselfly was to the small darter. The dragonfly was twice displaced by the slim damselfly, but the bulkier darter won the tussle in the end.

20/20 visions

The Willow Emerald is the twentieth species of odonata – dragonflies and damselflies – at Thorpe Marshes this year. This is two more than our regular 18 species. The new ones are Small Red-eyed Damselfly and Broad-bodied Chaser, though neither was confirmed as breeding. The NWT’s management last winter restored ponds and created patches of open ditch. The latter is where both new species showed; there were several sightings of Broad-bodied Chaser in June and July, often perching on the same twig.

Twenty is an impressive total for our fairly small – 25 hectare – nature reserve. Ever since Pam Taylor, Norfolk’s dragonfly guru, suggested to me that 20 species makes a ‘good site’ the pressure has been on to reach that total. And now we have.

 

Chris Durdin leads monthly wildlife walks at NWT Thorpe Marshes. Details of these and recent sightings on the reserve are on www.honeyguide.co.uk/thorpemarshes.htm.