Roving Roadside Nature Reserves Surveyors

Norfolk’s roadside verges stretch for literally thousands of miles and are such an integral part of the landscape for many wildflowers, insects and small mammals that it is easy to take them for granted. Some verges contain plant species that, although once common, are now rare or scarce in Norfolk to include sulphur clover (Trifolium ochroleucon) and crested cow-wheat (Melampyrum cristatum). To help to protect them, these special verges are designated as Roadside Nature Reserves (RNRs). Under the RNR Scheme, they are managed to benefit the plants and animals that live there. There are currently 111 designated (as of last update, 2017) with a combined length of over 15 kilometres.

Norfolk County Council manages the RNR Scheme. They mark these areas with distinctive posts and strive to ensure they are managed for the species they are designated for. As with many wildlife areas, there is a lack of up to date information on the wildlife of these verges and so the work of Roger and Jenny Jones will be valuable in updating the information held on these special verges.

I hope you enjoy this post from two of our volunteers.

Emily Nobbs (Conservation Officer)

 
by Roger & Jenny Jones
Reviewing Roadside Nature Reserves (RNRs) can become addictive. We never know what we might find. The tour of inspection began in 2016 when we managed to visit 40 RNRs. It actually started because of our involvement in NWT’s Churchyard Conservation Scheme – there were quite a few RNRs adjacent to the South Norfolk churchyards we were surveying. Then we just started to add “a few more”.

W

RNR25, sulphur clover, photo by Roger Jones

e ended the year on a slightly downbeat note as RNR 59 seemed to be about to disappear under the Norwich Northern Distributor Road. The good news is that the new bit of road is now open and the bank is still there. We also understand that seed was taken from the plants on this RNR and will be distributed on a suitable site nearby.

In 2017, there weren’t as many RNRs adjacent to our churches. Nonetheless we wanted to carry on and we mapped out RNRs near to places we were likely to visit. That led us to another 23. In some ways we hoped to be better prepared. We now had full citations for many of them, which should have been better than a mere list with grid references. However, we found that, in several instances, the marker posts showed different places to the maps in the citations. So, which was right? It boiled down to a best guess.

RNR1 proved difficult; we had largely wanted to visit because in was No 1. We had been to the location in 2016 but failed to find it. All we had to go on was a grid reference. We were sure we were in the right place but there were no marker posts. Which side of the road were we supposed to look? In 2017 we tried again with the benefit of the citation map. We were in the right place last year. But we still couldn’t find the key species, Dutch Rush (Equisetum hyemale). To be honest, we were uncertain what exactly it looked like – never having seen it before. There is another RNR that highlights Dutch Rush. Curiously, that one does not have marker posts either – but we think we found Dutch Rush. A conundrum to be solved in 2018.

Then at RNR5, we found something that ought not to exist. The site is quite lengthy and covers both sides of the road. When visited, it comprised largely long, rank grass. Then an oddity caught our eye. A single plant with double yellow flowers. Searching in the undergrowth, it proved to be a meadow buttercup. We have never seen a double-flowered one before. Later research at home led us to a cultivated variety with double flowers; but how did it get to be on a long and lonely RNR?

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RNR26, crested cow-wheat, photo by Roger Jones

astly, we set off in search of a great rarity. Early in 2017, the charity Plantlife issued a paper about disappearing wild flowers and the importance of roadsides for certain species. Amongst other things, it featured crested cow-wheat. The stronghold, if a handful of sites can be so described, is in Cambridgeshire where it exists largely on roadsides. And … there is one site in Norfolk, RNR26. It’s hard to find just a few plants in the long grass and it looks very vulnerable. But the search is worth it, the flower has a certain exotic look to it.


If you are interested in surveying Norfolk's wildlife have a look here on our website. Or if you fancy volunteering with us and sharing your skills, whatever they may be, have a look at our volunteer section.

Orchards East in Norfolk

Tom Williamson and Rachel Savage

Everybody seems to love an orchard: they tick all the boxes in terms of conservation. Like ancient woods or hedges, orchards lie at that fascinating interface of history and natural history, of nature and culture. And, whether laden with fruit in late summer, or bright with blossom in the spring, they have a strong aesthetic appeal. Orchards, and especially those managed on more ‘traditional’ lines - with tall trees and minimal use of herbicides - are an important wildlife habitat, a fact recognised by their definition in 2008 as a UK BAP (Biodiversity Action Plan) habitat. They have a rich grass sward, are often surrounded by a band of scrub in the form of hedgerows – and above all have their trees, providing (in the best examples) an important reserve of dead wood as well as an abundant source of nectar. Rare fungi, wood-boring insects like the noble chafer, wild flowers, lichens and epiphytes all thrive in these diminutive wood-pastures. But their numbers have fallen catastrophically over recent decades.

Orchards East is a new initiative, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and based at the University of East Anglia. We are cooperating with a wide range of partners, such as the East of England Apples and Orchards Project and the county Wildlife Trusts, across the six counties of eastern England (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire – and Bedfordshire). We aim to record and research old orchards, to conserve existing examples and create new ones, as well as to provide people with the appropriate practical skills that are needed to ensure that orchards can be maintained into the future. 

One important part of this project is to map, and understand the history of, surviving orchards – both ‘traditional’ examples, attached to old farmhouses; and more recent examples, for even these, if long-established or neglected, can contribute significantly to biodiversity. Our programme of recording and research will be carried out in cooperation with local volunteers, who will seek out existing orchards – or the remains of orchards – in their local area, and perhaps research their history at local record offices. Subsequent, more detailed, surveys of selected examples will assess their wildlife significance. We are particularly interested in knowing the extent to which the presence of particular epiphytes, fungi or saproxilic insects is simply related to the antiquity of the individual trees present within an orchard, and how far to the age of the orchard site itself.

We are currently recruiting volunteers to help record orchards (everyone is welcome and you don’t need to be an orchard expert!), and – ultimately – the kinds of wildlife found within them. The project is being rolled out gradually across eastern England over the next few months, on a county-by-county basis, and our Norfolk launch will take place at the Green Britain Centre at Swaffham on 4 November 2017.

If you are interested in attending – or are unable to attend, but keen to be involved - then please contact the Project Manager, Rachel Savage, on Rachel.Savage@uea.ac.uk. Or take a look at the website www.orchardseast.org.uk

How should we approach rewilding?

John Hiskett, Senior Conservation Officer

Rewilding. The term is often used but the practice varies from less intensive management of existing nature reserves to George Monbiot’s vison of uplands and the large scale projects in continental Europe where whole landscapes are being returned to a pre-industrial farming model.

One model, closer to home, is that followed by the Knepp Estate in Sussex which I had the opportunity to visit in early September. Knepp covers 3,500 acres set in rolling countryside between The Weald and South Downs and has been developing as a rewilding project since 2002.

At first glance, Knepp appears to be like any other area of grazed farmland but it soon becomes clear that things are very different. Hedges are wide and sprawling and in early September covered in berries unlike the closely trimmed hedges of most farmland. Fields are largely unfenced and grazing animals are free to wander between them. Many fields are developing a patchwork of hawthorn and blackthorn dominated scrub with willow in wetter areas.

The re-wilding experiment is driven by grazing animals, which include Old English Longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, red, roe and fallow deer and Tamworth pigs, which are left to roam free within 3 large enclosures. These animals are frequently encountered but are fairly sparsely scattered throughout the project area. This has led to welcome but unplanned increases in the ecological value of the area. Benefits of the increase in scrub has resulted in Knepp currently holding one of the largest breeding concentrations of nightingales in Britain, and becoming the top purple emperor breeding site in the UK. In addition turtle doves, which are in steep decline elsewhere, are increasing.

The economic model at Knepp includes agri-environment payments, income from safaris and income from a camping and glamping site which has been established in recent years, along with income from sales of free range meat. This latter highlights a major difference between Knepp and other well-known rewilding projects such as Oostvaardersplassen in Netherlands. At Knepp numbers of grazers are controlled by culling with the resulting organic free range meat adding to the income of the estate, whereas at Oostvaardersplassen grazing animals are left to live and die naturally. However, the lack of predators means that numbers are very high, giving the impression at first glance of herds of animals in African savannah. As a result, Oostvaardersplassen has progressed from a landscape with large numbers of trees and areas of scrub, when I first visited 10 years ago to almost bare grassland due to overgrazing, as was apparent on a visit earlier this year. In comparison at Knepp where numbers are artificially controlled through culling, well wooded parkland is developing with high biodiversity value.

What lessons are there for re-wilding projects elsewhere? The different forms of re-wilding all have their place and new projects should seek to use the most appropriate model. Oostvaardersplassen is attempting to create wholly wild landscape but absence of predators means that numbers of grazing animals have increased to a level which some argue is having a detrimental effect on the ecology of the habitat. In contrast at Knepp and other similar projects there is a return is to a more extensively managed landscape that is rich in some of the biodiversity that has been lost over much of lowland Britain as a result of agricultural intensification in recent decades. However, this model may need to be modified in areas where sensitive and rare habitats require management intervention if they are to persist in their current form.

 
Although bigger is obviously better it would be possible to establish extensive management at a smaller scale than at Knepp and one could argue that NWT and others are already doing this in places such as Roydon and Grimston Common. A Living Landscape in a farmed lowland landscape could be made up of large nature reserves and areas of extensively managed farmland linked by wildlife rich ecological corridors.

30 Days Wild: My journey

Norfolk Wildlife Trust's Head of People and Wildlife, David North signed up to the challenge of 30 Days Wild and got in touch with his inner wild child this June.  Close encounters with nature and priceless memories ensued.

Star gazing, moon watching, fire making, sea swimming, bee following, poppy field wandering, opening my eyes and ears for lots of looking and listening: 30 Days Wild has been an adventure.  Too many highlights to list, but I would like to share just some of my 30 Days Wild moments with you and just a few images that hopefully capture some of my special wild June moments.

Baby muntjac with 'Mum' and Swans with cygnets by David North

Waking on June 2 to look out of the window and spot a baby muntjac, still wobbly-legged and spotty-coated, and no bigger than a puppy, accompanied by its mum was a definite ‘isn’t nature amazing moment’ and the swans on Felbrigg lake later that day with nine cygnets scored high on the ‘cute factor’.

Yellow flag, bee orchids and dandelion clock by David North

I had resolved during 30 Days Wild to pay more attention to plants. After all June is peak-flower, both in my garden, and along the lanes and byways where I walk my dog, Rohan. 

Rohan enjoying the poppies

My June started yellow; with buttercups, dandelions and yellow flag iris. The middle of the month brought those stars of the plant world, orchids, into full flower, with both common spotted and bee orchids gracing my local walks. It ended in a blaze of scarlet, with a visit, accompanied by Rohan of course, to a Norfolk speciality, poppy fields in all their mind-altering crimson glory. Like stepping, Alice in wonderland like, into a different and brighter reality.I think Rohan liked it too.

Taking advice from my 30DaysWild pack I decided on several occasions during the month to try following bees. My preferred version of this was lying on my lawn in the sunshine watching countless bumblebees visiting white clover flowers and idling an hour trying to capture that perfect image. Well, no perfection, but one or two just about in focus images resulted!

I resolved with my wife to spend more time out outdoors, so gathering sticks and several outdoor cooking attempts in the garden left me, and the food, well-smoked.  I love the smell of wood-smoke but not sure how my colleagues at work took to my new smoky perfume aroma.

A curious Roe Deer by David North

During June a roe deer adopted us, spending much of its time either in the barley field we look out on, or the grass field next to our entrance. A field of waving Yorkshire Fog I’m proud to say – you see I’ve been learning my common grasses this month helped by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s County Wildlife Action project!  I got a lot of not very good photos of this particular roe deer, which had the early morning habit of eating the roses in our garden, but how could you not forgive such a soft-eyed, elegant, beautiful and gentle creature?  This image of her on the edge of the barley field is one of the better ones. 

Swallowtail detail by David North

 30 Days Wild, and there’s still a few days left as I’m writing this, has seen me adventure out to NWT Hickling Broad where in the hot sunny weather swallowtails were dancing over reeds and fen.But dancing fast enough to blur all my photos. This image I rather liked in an arty kind of way! I hope you do too.

Gossamer threads by David North

Hot days also brought vast numbers of tiny ‘money’ spiders to our garden, tickling hair and face as we ate our evening meals outside. This made me walk at sunrise the next morning to see if a could spot ‘gossamer’ in  the local fields – one of nature’s many miracles, when the usually hidden abundance of spiders is revealed by thin silk strands shining silver across whole fields. Spiderlings release these strands of silk to catch the wind and fly, but its only when   the sun is low in the sky at early morning, or near sunset, that these gossamer strands catch the light and are revealed.

Hoverflies enjoying the nectar on thistle head

What have I liked about 30 Days Wild? 
Well just about everything!  Like most people I need a reason to look and listen just a bit more carefully and to spend a little more time each day enjoying the extraordinary diversity and beauty of nature.  

What has impressed me most?  Probably my ignorance, for as I write this inside virtually every flower in my garden is a unique small  ecosystem teeming with life that seems extraordinary but about which I know almost nothing. Pollen beetles beyond count; small, black and perfect in every way; hoverflies in shades of marmalade- orange and black, with huge eyes that take up most of their heads. They queue in perfect hovers await their turn at my garden flowers.  Hoverflies in a holding pattern waiting for the larger bumblebees to leave some landing space. 

Barley turning gold by David North

As I write this the barley in the field next door is turning gold, and tonight, most likely, I will hear the hoots of tawny owls from a nearby wood and perhaps the barking of deer already thinking of the rutting season to come.  Yesterday my 30DaysWild action was to tempt the rabbits, which live in the brambles at the end of my garden, to come out into the open. I bribed them with a carrot. Small payment for permission to photograph them and to spend a happy half hour watching and smiling at their antics.  

One thing 30 Days Wild has taught me is that if you sit quietly and watch then wildlife may soon lose its fear of coming close.  Definitely true for these young rabbits!

Young rabbits by David North

Norfolk is extraordinary. Nature is extraordinary.  And my resolution, come the end of June, is to make ‘Wildfulness’ practice - simply spending time in, and with, nature, part of my every day and to share nature moments with friends and family. After all, whether we notice or not, we are part of nature and nature is part of us.

‘We are all, bird and human, part of the earth, of its time and its matter, impelled by the mechanisms within, the ones that order our responses to days, months, years, to light and darkness, the rhythms, circadian, circannual, that regulate what we are and what we do.' From: Esther Woolfson, Corvus. A life with birds.

30 Touches of Nature

The month of June is fast approaching and it's a great time to get outdoors and enjoy nature - it's good for your health and wellbeing.  Why not take up the 30DaysWild challenge?  Here Norfolk Widlife Trust's Head of People and Wildlife, David North explains how going wild in June can make you feel good.

'One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'  (William Shakespeare)
 

 There is much talk today of the benefits of ‘mindfulness’ as a way of coping with the seemingly ever-increasing stresses and strains of modern life. But ‘wildfulness’, simply spending time in nature, can also bring great rewards.

Bar-tailed godwits by David North

I was lucky enough over the recent Bank Holiday weekend to spend time walking on the Norfolk coast beneath the wild, eroding cliffs of Mundesley. It was a windy day, windy enough to blow your troubles away, and as the waves crashed against seaweed-encrusted, wooden groins masses of bubbly sea foam was flying into the air then bouncing along the beach in foaming masses. In my book, time spent walking along our wonderful Norfolk coast, with its diverse wild landscapes of sand, sea, shingle, mud and marsh, is never wasted.  A walk along the shore is a great place to gain a sense of perspective, to see things both literally and metaphorically in a new light.  And as with any walk in wild places there are always surprises: on this walk winging their way through the flying foam came a small flock of bar-tailed godwits.  They rested briefly on the beach, just long enough to see some were in full ‘red’ breeding plumage and others, perhaps non-breeders or younger birds, still winter grey. With them flew one, extremely smart, black and white spangled, grey plover. What a delight. Today Mundesley beach, next stop, perhaps the Arctic circle! 
 
Spending quiet time in nature, sitting or walking, listening and looking, without rushing or getting distracted by thoughts of jobs I need to do, not only helps me see details in the landscape and natural world that I would otherwise miss, it also helps me make sense of my life.  How often do we simply give ourselves time to ‘tune-in’ to the sounds, smells and textures of nature around us? But at least for me this time is vital: vital to health, happiness and sanity.

Perhaps you need an excuse to simply spend a few moments outside allowing yourself to connect to nature around you?  Well the good news is the Wildlife Trusts are offering the perfect excuse.  It’s free, like the wild world around us, and it’s called 30 Days Wild.
 
The aim is to get as many people as possible to do one small thing – one Random Act of Wildness – which could be as simple as going outside on a clear night and spending a couple of minutes star gazing, find a wild space in a lunchtime and sitting quietly for five minutes tuning in to the living things around us that we share this world with, or getting up early and listening to bird song, really listening so that all your attention is attuned to what you are hearing. It’s happening in June but if you visit the website now, we will send you a pack (by email or post) full of ideas for Random Acts of Wildness to try out in June.  These small actions – walking for a minute barefoot though grass on a dewy morning, taking time to touch the rough bark of a tree, following a bee or butterfly for a minute and observing its life – may sound trivial, but give it 30 days and I suspect you will be surprised at the power that spending time connecting to nature has to change the way you feel.  It should of course come with a health and happiness warning. After 30 days you may well have formed a lifetime habit!

Explore the boundaries between land, sea, sky, earth and nature. In doing so you may begin to discover your own connection to the timeless cycles of nature which in reality, without or without our conscious awareness, we are all participants in.  Is that wildness inside us or outside? Are we part of nature or separate from it?

If ‘one touch of nature makes the whole world kin’ just think what 30 touches can do for you!   To join in visit www.wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild  You are never too old or too young to enjoy the nature around you and if you are a family and would like to interest your children in wildlife then taking part in 30DaysWild is a great way to start. 

Do you want some help in reconnecting with nature?
The Wildlife Trusts have a saying, ‘All our lives are better when they are a little bit wild’ and have developed hundreds of ‘Random Acts of Wildness’ which are easy and free to do and can help you engage with nature wherever you are. For details visit 30 Days Wild.
 
The Wildlife Trusts believe that people are part of nature; everything we value ultimately comes from it and everything we do has an impact on it. We believe that each year, there should be more wildlife and more wild places, and people should become closer to nature.

On the verge...

Primroses and violets David North

Spring is good time to brush up on your plant identification skills as the hedge banks, lanes and roadside verges begin to blossom.  Here Norfolk Widlife Trust's Head of People and Wildlife, David North encounters some of our spring species as they emerge from winter.

Early April and nature seems pregnant with possibilities. Along the lanes close to where I live trees – oak, ash, beech and sycamore – are still winter bare, branches stark and darkly silhouetted against spring bright skies.  Birdsong and wildflowers - spring would not be spring without them, and both are in evidence as I walk my dog along familiar verges now brightened with the golds of  primrose and celandine, sky-blue speedwells and the unassuming greenish-yellow flowers of dog’s mercury. 

White dead nettle David North

 

This is the time of year I make my annual resolution to learn my wildflowers. Of course now it’s easy, the list of what’s in flower is comparatively small.  Red dead nettle is in profusion on road verges, forming magenta patches along the lanes.  Everyone knows dandelions and daisies and although both can be spotted in flower throughout the winter, their flowers are now abundant.  They do say spring hasn’t properly arrived until you can cover seven daisy flowers with a single footprint: well by my count spring is clearly here.   

More hidden are the flowers of other arable weeds, escaped from the fields onto my local road verges.  The diminutive white flowers of hairy bittercress, dull yellows of groundsel, the white stars of common chickweed and mauve-blues of ground ivy are easy enough to spot if you stop, bend and look a bit more closely among the grass.  I have some wonderful, shady sunken lanes to walk along. The banks here are festooned with literally hundreds of primroses and looking more closely amongst them I can find the black spotted leaves of early purple orchid and, already in flower, delicate white petals of barren strawberry. Woodland escapees on these shady roadside banks include the first red campion in flower, dog’s mercury, dog violet and ‘lords and ladies’ (wild arum).

'Lords and ladies' David North

The next few weeks in April will bring many more species into flower along our verges.  Look out for greater stitchwort, lacy-white cow parsley, and one of my favourites, growing on just a few local verges, the meadow saxifrage. I must dig out my wild flower guide and remind myself of how to distinguish creeping buttercup from bulbous and meadow buttercups and take on the annual challenge of speedwells: now is that one germander, field, slender, wall or ivy-leaved?

Few wildflower meadows remain in Norfolk but we probably all have a roadside verge close to where we live and these can be a haven for wildflowers.  And where there are flowers there will be butterflies and bees to spot. In the longer grass small mammals such as shrews and voles can thrive and their predators, barn owls, kestrels, foxes, weasels and stoats all hunt along grassy verges. So our roadside verges are like long, thin nature reserves and help wildlife move across the landscape

Red campion David North

Our roadside verges, if managed sensitively, can be hugely important for nature and our living landscapes. There are 238,000 hectares of road verge grassland in Britain with Norfolk alone having around 20,000 kms of road verges.  Across Britain verges support over 1,000 species of flowering plants including some species only found here.  With the loss of so many natural meadows in Norfolk today you are more likely to see a cowslip growing on a road verge than in a wild meadow. Even many orchid species, from common spotted to the early-purple and bee orchid, may be found thriving on road-sides. So why not take a walk on the verge and see what’s in flower in your local patch.  If you find something unusual don’t forget to let us know or send a photo to our gallery.    

If you, like me, would like to get to know your local wild flowers better then here are some to look out for along Norfolk’s roadside verges in April.  

• Common daisy

• Dandelion

  

  Violet David North

• Celandine

• Common vetch 

• Cow Parsley

• Garlic Mustard

• Greater Stitchwort

• Lords and Ladies (Cuckoo Pint)

• Red campion

• Red dead nettle

• Self heal

• Dog and Sweet Violet

• White dead nettle

Winter wildlife magic at Hickling Broad

Wildlife enthusiast, blogger and NWT Volunteer Barry Madden braved the bitterness of the east wind on a February evening to watch the spectacular wildlife at Stubb Mill Raptor Roost at Hickling Broad.

A fly past of common crane at Hickling Broad Nick Goodrum

It is cold here. Bitterly cold. A raw easterly wind whipping in from the North Sea a mile or two away; the boundary between the flat lands of eastern Norfolk and the miles of cruel grey water marked by a line of raised dunes seen as a smudge of dull green on the horizon. The scene before us a patchwork of reed bed, course grazing marshes and fen, interspersed with twisted and stunted hawthorn. The closest you can get to a barren wilderness in this part of the world for there are but scant traces of human activity: a forlorn and long abandoned wind pump, its skeletal sail arm pointing defiantly skywards; a single distant house rendered almost invisible by its light-coloured walls blending seamlessly into the gathering murk. Nothing else, just the wild open landscape unique to this Broadland haven at Norfolk Wildife Trust’s Stubb Mill Raptor Watchpoint at Hickling Broad. 

Us five friends have trudged to this spot, nothing more than a raised bank bordering a drainage dyke, to witness one of nature’s most thrilling and humbling spectacles; the winter roosting of the harriers. We are quite early, 90 minutes before true dusk, but already the leaden, squall-laden skies are casting their shadows over the marshes. Light is poor, visibility far from ideal, but we know the birds will come to seek out this quiet sanctuary to spend another bitterly cold night. And we don’t have long to wait before harriers sail in. First a dark marsh harrier, then a brighter male both gliding on slightly raised wings, buffeted this way and that as they cruise low over the boggy ground. Then delight; a ringtail hen harrier, its bright white rump shining as a beacon through the gloom. A flock of fieldfares appears in a nearby tree and jinking parties of smaller birds, perhaps finches or maybe yellowhammers, are flushed by a buzzard which perches atop a bush before joining another pair of harriers purposely heading towards their roosting zone.

Whilst our attention is focused on the raptors, a pair of common cranes glide over us, dropping down into a hidden pool where they are instantly consumed by the tall ranks of thick reed; lost to sight. These birds are doing well here, naturally arriving as a party of 9 nearly 40 years ago they found the place to their liking and took up residence. Slowly and painfully, with many false starts, the birds began to breed until we now have over 40 gracing the rich and fertile acreage around Hickling and Horsey. In recent years maybe 10 or so pairs attempt to raise young with varying degrees of success, allowing the birds to expand their range into other Broadland reserves and further afield into neighbouring counties. This success story owes all to the sterling efforts of NWT, other local conservation bodies and landowners. Cranes have recently been artificially reintroduced to Somerset, but it must be remembered that in this remote corner of Norfolk where the harriers circle over the reeds and the bittern still finds refuge, we have had majestic cranes for decades. And they always manage to thrill us.

Hen harrier by Elizabeth Dack

Things begin to hot up now with more harriers drifting into view, amongst them a simply beautiful, ghostly grey, resplendently perfect, male hen harrier. What truly gorgeous creatures they are, these birds of wild open spaces. This one drops to the ground seemingly finding his supper, an unlucky pipit perhaps, before he reaches the roosting zone. Through my telescope I can just make out his head tugging at the flesh of the prey he has caught. Such rare birds these and we are privileged to be able to see them in such a setting.

On past visits, on milder, sometimes even bright, winter evenings, the harriers, merlins, barn owls and cranes can put on a wonderful show with massed spiralling as a new bird joins the throng. Merlins arrow into the roost and will happily harass the much bigger harriers, chasing them across the vast open sky in sport. They choose to spend the chill of the night perched atop small hawthorn bushes whereas the larger raptors will roost on the ground or on low branches of dead and broken willows. The owls quarter the fields silent and relentless whilst the sky slower darkens and the stars come out to play. Not today though; the wind chill is numbing our hands, cutting through coats, hats and gloves and making our eyes water. We decide we have seen enough and head back along the narrow, lonely lane to the reserve centre where it is evident much activity is taking place to update and refurbish ready for the coming summer season.

Before this place became more well-known, I used to walk back alone along this lane, bordered by high dark hedges, with all kinds of ghoulish fancies running through my mind. I defy anyone to make this lonely journey and not look over their shoulder every 100 yards, just in case there may be something following; a darker shadow amongst the gathering gloom, an echo of footsteps or an unnatural rustling in the bushes. Hard not to speed up against all reason to reach your car before darkness falls complete. It is the workings of M R James; the fleeting glimpse of something unholy, for nobody knows you are here and your screams will be lost amidst the howl of the wind.

For us five folk though, chatting as a group, we had no such concerns. We instead were lucky enough to see three more cranes, a family party probably, fly towards the broad before we sought welcome refuge ourselves in the warmth of the local pub. Back to civilisation, cosy and comfortable, whilst close by there were the harriers roosting in the reeds, steeling themselves silently against the chilling bitterness of a moonless February night.   

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