A Trust of daring and hope

There is bustle and gossip everywhere on this warm morning. Behind me waves lap the shingle shore. Over them I hear the scratchy voices of common and Sandwich terns. A female marsh harrier, shoulders bright in the early sun, swings over the marsh inland. She is not welcome here and lapwings spring up — one pair, two, then a third — to see her away from their bobbly chicks which crouch in the happy green grass below. The harrier sways further, in her deceitfully aimless way, and a pair of redshanks leaps to strafe her, their white wings and rumps flashing. They too have chicks below. Last comes the heavy fire: two pairs of oystercatchers rise in shrill unison from the shingle, aiming their blazing bills and all their pied ire at the harrier, driving her away from where their speckled eggs lie among pebbles of the beach. High overhead, unreached by all this earthly drama, three skylarks sing, their seamless voices tumbling to my ears, causing me to smile a smile as broad and warm as today’s sky.

Chicks, eggs, song, birth: this is the stuff of spring. It is a time of looking forward, of raising young, of passing DNA one stage further along the ceaseless, twisting skylark song of evolution and of life. A time of daring and of hope: for what is the life of a wild plant or animal if not a story of daring and hoping — against hope — to survive, to breed, to pass its DNA to another generation?

I am at Cley Marshes, a place as deeply woven through the story of Norfolk Wildlife Trust as any. It is a fitting place, therefore, for reflection on NWT’s own history of daring and hope.

In 1926 Cley Marshes came up for sale and, galvanised by Dr Sydney Long, a group of twelve Norfolk friends bought the site as a bird reserve. Soon thereafter they founded Norfolk Naturalists Trust (known now as Norfolk Wildlife Trust), not only to protect and manage Cley Marshes but also to acquire other precious sites for wildlife around the county. In 1926, when few voices spoke for the wildlife that was rapidly vanishing from the UK landscape, this was as daring and hopeful an act as a lapwing harrying a harrier. Just like the bird’s bravado in defence of its chicks, the actions of these men were a bold investment in the future.

For 92 years Norfolk Wildlife Trust has expanded across the county, taking important wildlife sites under its wing, as a lapwing mother hugs its fluffball chicks under its own wings. Since the remarkable work of the founders in the 20s, 30s and 40s, no period in NWT’s history has seen greater achievement for wildlife than the past twenty years. The place where I stand today, back to the sea and face to the lapwing-loud marsh, is not part of the original reserve, purchased by Sydney Long and his friends in 1926.

Since the remarkable work of the founders in the 20s, 30s and 40s, no period in NWT’s history has seen greater achievement for wildlife than the past twenty years

This eastern stretch of Cley Marshes was added to NWT’s magnificent portfolio of reserves in 2015 when a daring and hopeful campaign was launched to fund its purchase. As I walk along the shingle here, I see a red kite to the east. Beneath its lazy, looping wings, glass-fronted buildings glint in the sun: a warm, friendly visitor centre, used by more than 100,000 people each year, and a wildlife education centre named after local naturalist Simon Aspinall, welcoming hundreds of children to share with them our love of nature. Both have been opened in the past decade too.

Very recently Hickling Broad in its entirety has also come into the ownership of NWT, thanks to another daring, hopeful appeal and to the remarkable generosity of the people of Norfolk. Thus, one of the largest and most coherent sites for wildlife in the county is now secure, for people and for wildlife. Cranes, marsh harriers, bitterns, bearded tits and otters can carry on their lives here as Sydney Long would certainly have wished. Not far away, at Upton Broad and Marshes, the past twenty years have seen the reserve hugely expanded, connecting the river Bure to the ancient fen and carr of this priceless site through a block of newly restored grazing marsh. Large areas of other habitats have been restored in the past twenty years too. In the west of Norfolk at Grimston Warren, thanks to cutting edge technology and yet more hope and daring, hundreds of acres of heathland — the largest heather heath in Norfolk — have again seen the light of day after forty years languishing beneath a conifer plantation. Nightjars, woodlarks, black darters, keeled skimmers and many more scare species have shown their approval by returning. On the boundary between Fens and Brecks at Hillgay, reedbeds have been lovingly recreated from carrot fields, for the benefit of bitterns, bearded tits and marsh harriers.

At the helm of Norfolk Wildlife Trust for the past twenty years, while all this and much more has been achieved, has been Brendan Joyce. All along he has epitomised daring and hope for the future of wildlife in our county and across the UK. Not since the days of Sydney Long has NWT known such a period of growth, of wide-ranging action for Norfolk’s wildlife, of daring and of hope. Of course without a team of talented, dedicated staff and volunteers, without perennially generous donors, without the moral support of the people of Norfolk, none of this could have happened. But for more than twenty years Brendan has led us. As he steps down from Norfolk Wildlife Trust this year, handing ideas, projects and a vibrant team — the institution’s DNA — to his successor, he leaves a trust which is quite as daring and hopeful as it was in 1926, a trust of which Sydney Long would be richly proud.

NWT

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