A few weeks ago I rang my friend Lynn for a ‘catch up’ call. As usual, it consisted mainly of me rabbiting on about my latest work, recent music, family gossip, and what birds I have photographed in my garden. In this case, I attached a displaying wren! a species I happened to know Lynn was sculpting at that very moment (she specialises in British wildlife). Remembering this, finally reminded me to ask her: ‘and how are YOU?’

I have rarely heard her so excited. “I have been to Norfolk!” she announced, as triumphantly as if it were a moon landing. I was happy for her but I probably sounded slightly underwhelmed, the result of having birded every inch of Norfolk since my very first visit in 1954, when I was 13. Since then, multiple returns had made me so blasé that I simply couldn’t conceive of a British birder not having been to Norfolk. “You’ve been there before of course?” I assumed. “No! It was fantastic!” ‘Er, which bit did you go to?’ I asked. “Cromer!” All due respect to Cromer but I wouldn’t rate it as a top site for anything except inflatables and crabs.

Marsh harrier hunting at NWT Hickling Broad, photo by David Savory

Lynn added “That was for a funeral.” I felt guilty already. “But then we went to somewhere called.. is it Clay? Or Cley?” “People have been asking that for centuries” I quipped. “Bill, I saw a marsh harrier! A marsh harrier! It swung over the road and turned, and I got a brilliant view. I’d never seen one before!”

Lynn would not claim to be a heavy birder, but she is an artist and I suspect that her eye for shape, movement texture and beauty makes a new bird even more thrilling to her than to most of us. Her sheer exuberance melted the telephone wires! By the time she had extolled visits to what sounded like Holkholm or maybe Titchwell, one thing was surely certain. That was Lynn’s first taste of Norfolk, but it won’t be the last.

Talking to her certainly revived memories and emotions of some of my many many visits. I certainly remembered my first marsh harrier. At that time - in the 1950s - there were only about a dozen pairs left in the whole of the country. They were all in Norfolk. The key to seeing one was being in the right area- mainly round Hickling Broad -testing your patience and luck. I had one brief view in a week. Quite a contrast with present times, when marsh harriers not only nest all over the county - and indeed country - but have even overcome their fussiness about needing ‘ideal’ extensive reedbeds. Now they will make do with patches of rough grass and cultivated crops. They even fly across roads!

'But then we went to somewhere called.. is it Clay? Or Cley?'
'People have been asking that for centuries' I quipped

Bill Oddie
Those dense reed beds so synonymous of the county -and dismissed somewhat disdainfully by Noel Coward as “Very flat, Norfolk”- are still impenetrable -and indeed still flat- but they are now far more accessible, or viewable, than in “the old days”. This is due to the long term care and management of the various conservation groups. In fact, there was a stage – 1950s and maybe beyond – when land ownership all along the North Norfolk coast was somewhat confusing, and occasionally often seemed hostile. Who did own this bit of field or marsh? Was it Norfolk Naturalists? Or Norfolk Ornithologists? Or RSPB? I confess that there were times and places when I ignored the ‘No Trespassing’ or ‘Private’ signs, took a chance and climbed over a gate or through a fence. And yes, I did get thrown off now and then.

Vestiges of that situation probably remain, but for good reasons. It seems that every year a scarce or even new species chooses to nest in the region, and protecting it often requires secrecy or constant surveillance. At the very least, there must be no disturbance. Fortunately, the current philosophy embraces not only safeguarding the wildlife, but also making it possible for the public to see and enjoy it. Indeed, if I had to choose one aspect of Norfolk that has changed most over the years it would be a positive one. It is not that many species have ceased to breed. Neither is it that many habitats have been spoilt or have disappeared. True some birds are scarcer than they were, but their decline is most likely generally across the country, and not just local.

On the plus side, spectacular birds like little egret and spoonbill are moving in, and the now ubiquitous marsh harrier is a veritable icon of successful conservation. “A bird that came back”.

Cley Marshes, photo by Richard Osbourne

However, to my mind it is not the birds of Norfolk that have improved, it is the facilities. Both for birds –from habitat management- and for people. Not only birdwatchers. This is the age of the Visitor Centre. Norfolk has more than most. Each one providing shelter, food and drink, as well as waterproof clothing, optical gear, birdseed and feeders, field guides, maps, postcards, woolly hats, key rings, and fluffy birds that make the right noise when you squeeze them. And something else we didn’t have in my day, nice clean toilets! There is, however, one thing that I have yet to see modernised and I hope never will be. The essential feature by the entrance of a nature reserve visitor centre is the “what’s about?” board. It is a standard blackboard, with a list of ‘recent sightings’ scribbled in chalk, and usually in writing which slants off to one side. It is sometimes confusing because yesterday’s sightings haven’t been wiped off properly, or -even more irritatingly- the highlights go back for ages, and just when you are getting all excited by the report of Red Footed Falcon you realize the date was months ago. Nevertheless, I am fond of the blackboard. I certainly hope they don’t replace it with a digital screen like they hold up at football matches. If you want that, why not go and support Norwich City?

On the other hand, like the sticker on the back windscreen says “I’d rather go birding.” In Norfolk, of course.

Bill Oddie OBE

Ps. No offence to Norwich City. Good luck with staying in the Premiership.
NWT
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