History of Holme Dunes

by Nick Acheson
A turtle dove purrs and a whitethroat scratches from a hawthorn heavy with the bloom and scent of May. Beyond the sea wall a redshank chimes from a saltmarsh silver with sea purslane. Inland, over marshes bright with the spring, a pair of shelduck flies, their bills the red of sealing wax against the beaten pewter of a dull spring sky. I have come to Holme Dunes to talk to its warden Gary Hibberd about the reserve’s history and all that has been achieved here since 1965 when much of it was bought by Norfolk Wildlife Trust (then known as Norfolk Naturalists Trust).

Whenever I come to Holme Dunes I have a sense of The Snow Goose, of visiting Rhayader in his lonesome marshland lighthouse. Beyond the gates of the reserve there is nothing but the wind and the wild. It is, however, a contrived wild, a wild worked by people, historically for their own ends but, since 1965, for the good of nature.

The dunes, from which the reserve takes its name, and which are perhaps its rarest and most precious habitat, were formed by wind blowing sand inland from the beach and specialist plants colonising the blown sand. They have also been sculpted by humans, in ways which have had collateral benefits for wildlife. During the Second World War the house known as The Firs and the dunes were requisitioned for the war effort, with the latter used as a firing range. The straight lines of the lower dunes were formed by bulldozers, to support a light railway on which to run mobile targets. Oddly, the scraping of sand on the inland side of the dunes created the slacks, shallow pools fed by a natural lens of freshwater, which are habitat for some of Holme Dunes’ most important species today.

Natterjack toad, photo by Karl Charters

Among these are natterjack toads, rare, tubby, short-legged dwellers of ephemeral pools on dunes and heaths. They were deliberately introduced from Winterton Dunes NNR in the 1970s, under the stewardship of then warden John Newton. Holme Dunes, with its naturally fluctuating water table, allowing pools to dry out and periodically re-flood, proved ideal for natterjacks which have flourished here. Indeed, with Holkham, it is now Norfolk’s most important site. The toads’ favourite breeding pool was planned and created by John. Colleagues said it would be too large for these fussy amphibians, but John’s instincts were right and ever since it has been one of Norfolk’s most productive pools for natterjacks.

Since John left, Bill Boyd (warden for 13 years) and Gary (warden since March 1989) have closely monitored the fortunes of the natterjacks, counting strings of spawn in spring and toadlets in summer. In years of drought there are sometimes no toadlets but often there are thousands and Gary recalls that in 1998 he counted tens of thousands. Hosting natterjacks requires care. As soon as Gary is sure that the toads have emerged from hibernation each spring, konik ponies are introduced to their breeding sites. ‘The beauty of koniks,’ Gary says, ‘is that, though they’re heavy, they nibble like rabbits and they also eat up all the dry, dead vegetation.’ The short sward they create, and the dung they leave, make ideal insect-hunting grounds for the tiny emergent toads.

Had it not been for the 1953 flood of the Norfolk coast there might have been no natterjacks at Holme today. Indeed much of its characteristic wildlife might have been lost. After the war Billy Butlin, then at the peak of his success, had his eye on Holme Dunes. He even drew up plans for chalets, which today are kept in the NWT archive. For all the suffering it caused in Norfolk and further afield, the 1953 flood put paid to his idea, clearing the way for NWT’s land purchase in 1965.

Konik ponies, photo by Mel Slote

The strength of Holme Dunes today lies not merely in land ownership, but also in collaboration with surrounding landowners. Gary and his team have a close relationship with Sophie Barker and her colleagues at the Norfolk Ornithologists Association reserve next door. Moreover, large parts of the NWT reserve, on which many of its most important species live, are leased from local landowners. Bitterns sometimes breed successfully on land owned by Peter Melchett and managed by NWT on behalf of Courtyard Farm Trust. This success is the result of work by Gary and his predecessor Bill to create more wet reedbed here. The reedbeds are now also a stronghold for marsh harriers, with several nests each year and - unthinkable twenty years ago - a small winter roost.

Nearby, most of the freshwater grazing marsh on the reserve (which was created in the 1860s by embankment, to keep out the twice-daily incursions of the tide) is owned by Mark Robinson, a long-term ally of NWT. These grazing marshes are critical at Holme for lapwings, with around fifty pairs nesting annually. They are also important for ducks, with flocks of wigeon in winter, and mallard, gadwall, shoveler, shelduck, tufted duck and pochard all breeding each year and garganey nesting occasionally. Teal have been found breeding just once. Gary’s great friend Neil Lawton, warden of Scolt Head Island, was volunteering for NWT one spring and, in Gary’s words, ‘he only blundered straight into a brood of teal.’ Listening to Gary, I have a feeling this slight - the finding of a rare breeding bird on his patch - has not been forgiven to this day.

For, after nearly thirty years at Holme Dunes, Gary is still passionately committed to its wildlife, still driven to record and protect the many species which live here and enhance habitat for them. In the 1970s John Newton instigated butterfly transects. They have been carried out ever since. On his watch Gary has witnessed the arrival of the dark green fritillary, formerly associated with Holkham NNR but now established at Holme too. Adults drink nectar from the many flowering brambles and privets which dot the dunes, while caterpillars feed on heath dog violets which are likewise common. Brown argus was also rare until quite recently. The books tell that its larval foodplants are common rockrose and crane’s-bills but Gary puts its success at Holme down to a shift to include closely-related common stork’s-bill, which is abundant in the scuffed and well-drained sand of the dunes. Sometimes in summer it is now the most abundant butterfly on his transects. Another insect arrival was the stripe-winged grasshopper which, though widespread on the sand-over-chalk landscape of the Brecks, was always scarce in North Norfolk. A few years ago it was found here by Ash Murray (now Natural England warden at Dersingham Bog), close to the car park, and today it is common on the reserve.

After the war Billy Butlin, then at the peak of his success, had his eye on Holme Dunes. He even drew up plans for chalets, which today are kept in the NWT archive

Ash was just one of numerous assistant wardens, apprentices and volunteers who for many years have supported the work of the wardens and visitor centre staff. Volunteers welcome visitors, help in practical habitat management, and play a key role in monitoring wildlife. For years they have contributed to the Wetland Birds Survey which is nationally coordinated by the British Trust for Ornithology. Though it is generally off the NWT reserve, on shingle bars just northwest of the golf course, in late summer Holme sees a high-tide wader roost which is the equal of the well-known roost at nearby RSPB Snettisham. Gary and his volunteers regularly count 40-50,000 knot here on high tides in August and September. Indeed the highest ever count of a single-species wader flock in the UK took place on the reserve at Gore Point: on 16 October 1993 Gary and his volunteer colleagues witnessed a spectacular high-tide roost of between 150,000 and 200,000 knot.

Such birds stand out because they occur in vast numbers, of global conservation significance. Others stand out because of their singularity, their rarity in the UK. Ever since Holme Dunes was acquired it has been known as a site for rare passage birds. The 1970 NNT Annual Report records  that, in addition to four bluethroats and a golden oriole, ‘Wryneck, Nightjar, Bittern, Bearded Tit, Ortolan Bunting, Richard’s Pipit, Short-eared and Long-eared Owls, Bewick’s and Whooper Swans were also observed within one hundred yards of The Firs.’ Among many fine springs and autumns Gary has witnessed on the reserve (he has seen 303 bird species here, of 344 recorded), early autumn 1992 still holds the greatest thrill in his memory. Exceptionally, from 1 July to 13 August a male red-spotted bluethroat broke its migration to moult just inside the front gate and was visited by countless birders. Then from 31 August to 4 September the dunes were home to Norfolk’s only recorded Rüppell’s warbler (only the fourth for the UK). To the horror of the twitchers (and Gary’s amusement to this day) the bird chose to leave on a Friday evening, before the weekend rush to see it. Two weeks later, on 19 September, Gary was asked to identify a bird a visitor had seen next door on the NOA reserve. It was a yellow-breasted bunting, the first seen alive in Norfolk since the days of the Victorian bird-collectors.

The rare birds still come. Last year Neil texted Gary from Scolt Head to say that a black stork was heading his way. Gary and apprentice Robert Smith rushed to the beach and scanned the sky. They found the stork, lost it again for an agonising five minutes, then watched as it floated inland, mobbed by the local buzzards. Exciting as such visitors are, the day to day life of the reserve’s staff and volunteers is of counting and caring for its precious inhabitants. Gary’s seasoned eye sees that the dunes are now very stable. Following the recent, successful mechanical scraping of the dune slacks for natterjacks, now he’s thinking of scraping patches of overgrown, south-facing dune, to favour the rare plants and invertebrates that need sun-warmed bare ground, like grayling and small heath butterflies. He’s thinking of the koniks on the grazing marshes too, making the conditions for this year’s lapwing chicks to thrive; and of the turtle doves, fast declining nationally, which are breeding in the paddocks. And always he’s thinking of his duty to these fragile species, to his team of staff and volunteers, to the landowners alongside whom he works, to his predecessors, Bill, John and others, and to the legacy of Sydney Long, whose vision it was 90 years ago to preserve such places in which Norfolk’s exceptional wildlife could thrive.