Living Landscape activities: now every week

Mark Webster, Living Landscape project officer

Norfolk Wildlife Trust staff are breaking out of their Roydon Common nature reserve to help local communities to create a ‘Living Landscape’ in and around King's Lynn.  Focusing on the Gaywood River and its surrounding Valley, NWT’s Gemma Walker and I will be running activities at the same time every week from October onwards, based at Reffley Community Centre on Reffley Lane. 

Volunteering, photo by Tony McKie

Kicking things off at 10am on Monday 6 October will be a Fungi Foray with expert (and enthusiast) Dr Tony Leech, who will lead us out from Reffley Community Centre car park round the nearby woods, searching for and identifying as many mushrooms as possible. 

From then on, the group will be meeting every Monday morning at 10am (with a short break for Christmas and New Year) always starting at Reffley Community Hall car park, Reffley Lane, Kings Lynn, PE30 3EQ, at 10am. Activities in October and November include visits to ‘hidden gem’ wildlife sites in the area  (a minibus is provided if it’s too far to walk), work to improve local woodland habitats, and the chance to learn more about the Gaywood River and the history of Kings Lynn.

Sessions generally last until 1pm but you can leave earlier if you need to. Most sessions will include the chance to try practical conservation work and/or learning about wildlife, but you do NOT have to be physically fit to take part. Tea and biscuits are usually provided, as are any tools equipment and training needed. 

Anyone can just turn up and join in (under 18s need to be accompanied by an adult) and all you need to bring are old outdoor working clothes. There’s usually no need to book but Gemma and Mark are happy to answer any questions you may have before you give it a try: call 01603 598333 or email wild@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk. You can also find out more about the new Living Landscape approach at www.mylivinglandscape.org.uk

Living Landscapes: practical tasks

Mark Webster, Project Assistant

It’s been a very busy first six months for me working in the Delivering Living Landscapes pilot project areas of the Gaywood Valley near Kings Lynn and in the Bure and Ant Valleys of the Broads.  Two contrasting areas in many ways, although both are packed with wildlife – we have had no problem finding plenty of places that we can improve for wildlife outside our nature reserves!

We have been seeking out places where wildlife can spread out into the wider landscape – buffer zones around sites which are already good for wildlife; corridors for species to disperse along; and stepping stones amidst areas that are currently not so wildlife-friendly.

My personal highlights so far include:

• Planting 750 mixed native trees at the spectacular historic site of St Benet’s Abbey, which will provide nectar sources, berries, nesting sites and shelter along a 200m long section outside the boundary, linking existing small copses to form a liner corridor for wildlife.  Existing excessive growth of hawthorn was also cut back where it was at risk of damaging the heritage value of this 1,000 year old archaeological site.
• Establishing a brand new wildflower area at Sutton Staithe in a popular recreation area, with over 20 species of native wildflower planted into a section of amenity grassland. Birdboxes were also installed, and we will continue to work with the parish council to advise them on how best to manage the area.
• Digging new pond in a neglected wet area of Filby, with a pathway established alongside. The area is adjacent to the local school and it is expected that they will use this for environmental education work. 
•  Planting poppies to commemorate WW1 at the Rookery, Kings Lynn, in an amenity area between the local schools and an ancient woodland
• Helping to develop a new wildlife-themed garden being established at Kings Lynn Arts Centre, with bird-boxes, insect boxes, bird-feeders.  This is right in the town centre of urban Kings Lynn, surrounded by concrete, but already has a resident blackbird!
• Making a new circular woodland path around Reffley Spring Wood, enabling local people to explore the site and enjoy all-year-round access to nature right on their doorsteps.

But as well as these, we have also been working to improve habitats in South Walsham, Stalham, Roydon, Wroxham... the list goes on.

Over 100 people have been involved so far, but we are still keen for more to join us.  So if you would like to get some free exercise in some of the most beautiful places in Norfolk, please contact Gemma and me via wild@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk or by calling 01603 598333. Or you can just turn up and join in – click here for Bure Valley tasks, and click here for the Gaywood Valley. See you soon!

Tales of the Gaywood Goatsucker

Ed Parnell, Norfolk Wildlife Trust

In July dusk is late to make way for darkness, but as night finally begins to arrive a strange sound fills the heath – an almost-mechanical mix of reeling, rattling and croaking. A nocturnal swarm of insects, or a frog chorus perhaps? No, the throaty, churring calls belong to one of the UK’s most enigmatic birds: the nightjar.

Nightjars are a scarce summer visitor, arriving in May and departing for their sub-Saharan wintering grounds from mid-August. In Norfolk, they are found mainly in heathlands and young conifer plantations. Their stronghold is the Brecks, but there are also healthy populations in the heaths of the North Norfolk coast, the Gaywood Valley near King’s Lynn, as well as a few smaller populations scattered around the county.

The clever camouflaged nightjar, photo by Andrew Ramsey

Nightjars are odd-looking birds. Their plumage is an intricate mix of camouflaged browns, perhaps most similar to a tawny owl, but their shape is very different: whereas owls sit upright, nightjars are elongated and horizontal, meaning that during the day, when they often sit lengthways along a branch, or on the ground, they are almost impossible to spot. In flight, they’re an entirely different prospect: long-winged and like a hawk, though with a jerky, flapping action, which brings to mind a giant moth.

Like most nocturnal birds, a wealth of folklore and superstition surrounds the nightjar. Since classical times it was thought (wrongly) that the birds feasted on the milk of goats, leading to one of their alternative names: goatsucker. The naturalist Gilbert White recorded a mistaken belief among the locals of Selborne in Hampshire that nightjars attacked calves and inflicted them with a fatal distemper (actually caused by the egg-laying warble fly). Norfolk too, has a nightjar tradition: the seventeenth century Norwich writer Sir Thomas Browne refers to the species as the “dorhawke or prayer upon beetles”.

One of the best places in Norfolk to see nightjars is RoydonCommon in the Gaywood Valley. Walk onto the heath just before dusk (a full moon on a warm, still day will help) and wait. With luck, the distinctive churring calls will soon begin and you will spot one of these long-winged enigmas flying low over the heath, hunting for insects. The males will often deliver their display calls from an exposed branch but it can be incredibly frustrating to try and pin down their whereabouts as the sounds have a ventriloquial quality, seeming to emanate from all around.