Norfolk Wildlife Trust is a charity dedicated to all aspects of wildlife conservation in Norfolk. Our members help us to create a county where there is space for nature to thrive and more people are inspired to take action for nature.
Thank you so much for being a member. Why not give the gift of wildlife to someone else? A gift membership is a unique present for wildlife watchers, outdoors enthusiasts, or families keen to explore Norfolk further. We can even post a welcome pack with a message directly to the recipient on your behalf. They will also receive three copies of Tern each year, access to local events, and be able to explore NWT nature reserves for free. Visit our website to buy your gift or call 01603 625540.
If you’re not already a member of NWT, please join us today by visiting our website, calling our friendly team using the details below, or asking a member of staff at one of our visitor centres. Help us create a wilder Norfolk for all. norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/Join or 01603 625540
Tern is published three times a year by Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Advertising sales by Countrywide Publications.
Printed by Micropress Printers Ltd.
Editor: Vicky Boorman
Designer: Hannah Moulton
While every care is taken when accepting advertisements neither Norfolk Wildlife Trust nor Countrywide Publications can accept responsibility for unsatisfactory transactions that may arise. The views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
What jumps out in this issue for me is the sheer variety of wildlife that benefits from our work. Rarities that make the headlines, such as the northern pool frog and fen orchid, but also the perhaps lesser-known species — we’ve found 50 kinds of water beetle in our newly created pingos for example! (p20)
Behind the success of every creature is suitable habitat — a place to call home. And with your support, we provide these homes, and we support others to provide these homes: digging and tilling, cutting and grazing, inspiring and advising others to create wildlife-friendly spaces.
Despite all these efforts it is still not enough. With the multitude of threats facing species and the shocking decline in biodiversity, we must do more. That's why we’re launching our Norfolk’s Nature
Needs a Home appeal, read more on page 24. This feels even more important as we seek to ensure that our nature is rightly seen as an enabler of growth, rather than a barrier to it, as parts of this government seem to think.
Also in this issue, we hear from Abi, a member of our Wilder Learning Team (p14) and celebrate other inspiring female colleagues to mark International Women’s Day (p16). Plus, you can find out more about our wonderful new Trustees (p45) and marvel at the dedication of Aylsham Swift Group on page 38.
As ever, thank you so much for all your continued support. We hope you have a wonderful spring and find inspiration for places to visit and wildlife to discover in these pages.
Eliot Lyne, Chief Executive
Alternative ways to read Tern The magazine can be read on our website as a text-only document. You can make changes to font size and background colour, for easier reading, and enjoy Tern using a screen reader. This issue is available to download at norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/PlainTextTern
Jimmy King
Highlights from Norfolk and national news from The Wildlife Trusts
NWT helps Bedingham Hall Farm win top farm conservation award
Congratulations to Bedingham Hall Farm, in South Norfolk, who have won the prestigious Ian MacNicol Memorial Trophy for conservation. We have worked with Bedingham Hall Farm to enhance habitats for wildlife, including through our Claylands Wilder Connections project.
The farm, managed by Louise Bond of Bruce Seaman Farms, received the award from Norfolk FWAG (Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group) for its exemplary implementation of conservation measures, alongside its commercial farming business.
We have supported Louise in making her farm better for wildlife with a whole range of initiatives, from restoring 11 ponds to enhancing five hectares of grassland. The farm now provides many vital habitats and is a great example of how wildlife can thrive alongside commercial arable farming.
If you are interested in advice and support to enhance wildlife friendly habitats on your farm then please contact: Ben Newton, Wilder Landscapes Adviser: email benn@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
Praise for accessibility at NWT Sweet Briar Marshes
A local disability action group, Inclusive Norwich, has described the accessibility features that we have installed so far at Sweet Briar Marshes as 'gold standard.' By involving Inclusive Norwich at the start of the design process, we ensured the needs of people with different abilities were firmly embedded in our plans. In turn, this has made facilities better for everyone. Lightweight gates, a wide, hard-packed pathway with raised edges and seating designed
for a variety of users have been installed so far to enhance access.
The infrastructure funding was provided by our project partner, Aviva. Their generous financial support and employee volunteering continue to help us enhance Sweet Briar Marshes for both people and nature.
We look forward to more shared learning as we continue to make sure everyone can access this lovely wild space.
Thanks so much to everyone who has taken part so far.
There is still time to share your thoughts. Fill out the survey via the link below and let us know what you enjoy and what we could do to improve.
The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/ TernSurvey
to right: NWT Urban Reserves Manager, Matt Wickens with Danny Nobbs from Aviva and Dave Shraga from Inclusive Norwich at Sweet Briar Marshes.
Louise Bond and her father, Bruce Seaman, with the trophy
Left
Saving our chalk streams
With less than a fifth of England’s rivers in good ecological health, we are working alongside other Wildlife Trusts to call on the Government to deliver protections for our county’s unique chalk streams — through changes to planning policy.
England's chalk streams are one of the rarest habitats on earth! Their crystal-clear waters are home to water voles, white-clawed crayfish, Norfolk hawker dragonflies and kingfishers, making them our equivalent to the Great Barrier Reef or the Amazon Rainforest. They are a truly special habitat that must urgently be granted the unique protection they deserve.
Most of the world’s chalk streams — around 85% — are found in England, and approximately 10% of these are found in Norfolk, making the county globally important for these wildliferich waterways. Chalk streams in Norfolk include (but are not limited to) the Rivers Bure, Glaven, Stiffkey, Burn, Heacham and Gaywood. The longest and most significant is the River Wensum, which runs alongside our Sweet Briar Marshes nature reserve. It forms a vitally important corridor that helps wildlife such as otters, birds and bats to move through the county.
The Government now has a valuable opportunity to stand up for our chalk streams in their planning policy reforms.
During the Government’s consultation on proposed changes last year, more than 700 people joined the Wildlife Trusts’ call to urge action on protecting chalk streams. In November 2024, NWT joined other charities in signing a joint letter to parliament advocating for policy change. Sadly, there has been no action so far. However, another consultation on planning policy is on the way and we must continue to speak up.
We are contacting Norfolk MPs and councillors to encourage them to champion chalk streams in Government during this year’s planning policy reviews. We are also promoting the recognition of chalk rivers in Norfolk County Council's Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
You can help too, by calling on your local councillors to put forward a motion to protect and honour the natural rights that our rivers and chalk streams desperately need.
Find out more: norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/ SaveOurChalkStreams
During the autumn and winter, we worked with farmers and landowners across Norfolk to restore over 20 ponds using funding from Natural England. Without appropriate management, ponds can become overgrown with scrub, or fill up with leaves and silt, which reduces their value to wildlife. The pond then needs restoration work, usually including scrub removal and careful excavation, to increase its value for biodiversity once again.
The funding for this restoration work comes from a scheme called District Level Licensing. Developers can sometimes pay into this Natural England scheme in mitigation of damage to great crested newt habitat due to development. As these newts are a legally protected species, the funding is then used to restore existing ponds that are in poor condition or have been filled in, known as a ‘ghost pond’. This provides habitat for great crested newt, as well as a wide range of aquatic plants, invertebrates and other amphibians. Ongoing monitoring for great crested newts is used to determine the success of restored ponds. So, the scheme means more ponds in good condition, in areas that are great for wildlife.
If you are a farmer or landowner who would like to consider restoring ponds on your land, then this scheme may be able to cover the cost. For more information see norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/Ponds or contact NWT Wilder Landscapes Advisor, Ben Newton: benn@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
Water vole
Great crested newt
Terry
WILD YOUTH ACTION
We have recently launched a new programme to help inspire the next generation of climate leaders and nature custodians — Wild Youth Action. It’s vital that all young people in Norfolk, especially those that experience barriers, are supported to connect with nature and take urgent action for nature’s recovery.
To celebrate Wild Youth Action and the huge potential of youth-led ideas, we invited partners, networks and new audiences to our inaugural symposium, Youth Action Now: a Festival of Nature, at Norwich Arts Centre last November. Throughout the day, workshops, walks and talks helped inspire all ages with Norfolk’s wildlife; including urban nature walks with NWT Ambassador Nick Acheson, a keynote speech on community activism by broadcaster Amy Nomvula, and an invigorating panel discussion from our own Wilder Wardens. We also enjoyed an inspiring talk by Limbik Theatre and a workshop from visual artist Kaitlin Ferguson, imagining NWT Sweet Briar Marshes in the future.
Oscar, our young blogger, took part in the event and told us: ‘I feel proud to be part of an organisation that is so vigilant about promoting opportunities for young people in conservation’. You can read Oscar's full account of Youth Action Now via the blog section of our website.
Youth Action Now: a Festival of Nature was held at Norwich Arts Centre last November
Looking ahead, Wild Youth Action is nurturing a Youth Forum, a new collective of 16 to 25 year olds. We'll be supporting the group to manage their own nature reserve and lead on campaigns they're passionate about.
Please sign up to our Wild Youth Action e-newsletter to discover more opportunities. norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/ YouthAction
Black-spotted chestnut moth
This work is part of our Building Foundations for the Future project, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
New moth species recorded for Norfolk
A black-spotted chestnut moth made its Norfolk debut at NWT Weeting Heath in November. Our warden, James Symonds, found the striking moth in a light trap during survey work on the nature reserve. He quickly identified the moth as a newcomer to Weeting, joining the nature reserve’s long list of moth species. Further enquiry proved the moth to be a new species for the county. ‘The moth was first recorded in the
UK in 2011,’ says James, ‘this species is slowly moving north. It made it to Suffolk in 2014 and Cambridgeshire in 2018 — and now it’s finally in Norfolk.’
The first UK record was in Deptford, Kent and is among several recent colonising moths to the British Isles. The black-spotted chestnut moth emerges in October, with most records in November to February. The adults will hibernate, re-emerging in the spring.
This spring we’re making some changes at Weeting Heath. Our visitor centre opened in 1997, offering new facilities for our members and other site visitors. At this time, Weeting Heath was the only place to reliably see the elusive stone curlew — a bird which, despite still requiring significant protection, can now be seen at several other sites in Norfolk and throughout the UK. As a result, whilst still being vital for wildlife, Weeting Heath no longer offers the unique attraction that it did two decades ago, and we have seen a drop in visitor numbers.
The work we want to do to protect and restore wildlife across the Brecks
is growing, and providing daily access to a visitor centre during the spring and summer takes up a significant amount of staff and volunteer time. To achieve the best outcomes for nature and people now that we are seeing fewer visitors to the site, we have taken the difficult decision to close the visitor centre.
But don't worry, Weeting Heath will remain a great place to enjoy Norfolk’s iconic wildlife. Members will continue to enjoy free access to Weeting Heath and its wildlife hides, as well as a new programme of walks and talks offering you the chance to learn more about the site’s special wildlife and how we protect it. During events the visitor centre will be open, with access to wheelchair-
accessible toilets. Events will be promoted online and via our member e-newsletters.
The visitor centre will continue to offer seasonal accommodation for our warden, who will be on hand to open and close the site and to carry out vital conservation work to ensure stone curlews continue to thrive at Weeting Heath.
Find out more: norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/ WeetingHeathChanges
Project connects communities with beautiful Brecks
December 2024 marked the end of ‘Watery Wildlife,’ a five-year project delivered by Norfolk Wildlife Trust in partnership with Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Part of the Brecks Fen Edge and Rivers Landscape Partnership Scheme and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the project inspired schools and community groups to connect with the Brecks’ unique watery landscapes and habitats.
Centred on NWT Thompson Common — renowned for its Ice Age pingo ponds and species like the northern pool frog, the UK’s rarest amphibian — we engaged with over 2,000 local children through school assemblies, hosted adult workshops, and facilitated visits to the reserve with community groups and three local schools. Highlights also included open day events, creating short wildlife films, and the distribution of seasonal Watery Wildlife calendars promoting Brecks' green spaces.
One teacher, from Thompson Primary School, told us that after their visit ‘the children now have a much greater knowledge of the flora and fauna in their local area — and even the staff
A school visit to Thompson Common
came away with new knowledge,’ while a pupil at the school particularly enjoyed ‘having a go at the binoculars, learning about oak galls, seeing a coot and making nature art!’
The project also strengthened bonds between communities and local
wildlife, with groups like Norfolk and Waveney MIND and Thetford Conservation Volunteers eager to continue collaboration. Two schools are set to return for post-project visits in 2025, ensuring the legacy of connecting people with the Brecks’ extraordinary natural heritage.
Championing our peatlands
Last May, we were awarded a grant with the aim of assisting local communities to restore three of west Norfolk’s remaining peatlands. West Norfolk Reserves Manager Ash Murray looks back on what the project has achieved so far.
West Norfolk’s greensand ridge would once have supported an almost continuous chain of vibrant, biodiverse peatlands. Most of these have been destroyed due to a combination of drainage, conversion to agriculture or forestry, and a lack of active management. Despite this, the area still supports a globally important series of fens.
In recent decades, air pollution (mainly from airborne nitrogen compounds) and climate change have damaged these peatlands, leading to the loss of many of the rare and threatened species they support, as well as causing the peat to release the carbon it has stored over hundreds of years.
The Restoring West Norfolk’s Peatlands for All project was funded as part of the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund. Its aim is to help bring together local communities to help restore damaged areas of peatland on NWT’s Roydon Common, Tony Hallatt Memorial Reserve and East Winch Common.
As a result of the project we have more than doubled our West Norfolk volunteer team. We now have an active team of 23 Peatland Champions carrying out survey and monitoring work, as well as practical management across these reserves.
The project has provided training, enabling volunteers to learn new skills and many have formed new connections within their local communities. Learning about plant and fungi identification, as well as bird surveying techniques, has empowered our volunteers to fill in gaps in our surveillance programme, focusing on lesser-
Volunteer
Julie Smart and NWT Reserves Assistant Tori Backham take part in
fungi surveying
studied groups of species throughout seldom-trodden areas of the sites.
Julie Smart is a long-term Livestock Checker for NWT. ‘I have always been passionate about fungi,’ she tells us, ‘but the training provided has enabled me to improve my knowledge of this fascinating group. I now carry out surveys with a team of other volunteers. It has been great to meet up with like-minded folk and to know that the records I collect will help to improve our understanding of the reserves and feed into how they are managed.’
The grant has also funded the purchase of various equipment to help our volunteers carry out their work. This included hand tools and first aid kits for Gaywood Valley Conservation Volunteers, as well as specialist species identification texts and survey equipment.
We’ve also employed contractors to carry out tussock stripping work on Tony Hallatt Memorial Reserve. Nitrogen pollution has promoted the growth of grass tussocks, causing them to form a smothering mat through which smaller flowering plants and mosses cannot grow. Specialist wetland contractors use tried and tested restoration techniques to remove the tussocks, leaving a bare, damp peat surface on which peat-forming species can re-establish; turning these remaining peatlands from significant emitters of carbon to vital carbon stores.
Following the tussock stripping, reserve staff and volunteers will maintain the fens by annual cutting and removal of vegetation to reduce nutrient levels and maintain the open conditions required by the smaller, lower-growing wetland plants, such as sundews, sphagnum mosses and sedges.
Find your perfect hideaway
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From cosy cottages to luxury retreats close to beautiful sandy beaches, in rural hotspots or in the middle of quaint market towns, we’ve got something for everyone.
norfolkhideaways.co.uk 01328 887 658
Banded demoiselle Species spotlight
The banded demoiselle Calopteryx splendens is a truly beautiful insect; a damselfly with the demeanour and grace of a butterfly. Its preferred haunt is gentle flowing, shallow meandering rivers, with open banksides and nearby meadows. In Norfolk they are closely associated with chalk streams. They can be found across the county, including along the River Wensum in central Norwich. The male has a metallic blue-green body, with bold, dark blue wing bands, these are criss-crossed by iridescent wing veins. The females are metallic green with a copper sheen on the thorax and tip of the abdomen.
Banded demoiselles are on the wing from mid-May through to the end of August. The species provides an indication of water quality, as it is very sensitive to pollution, and require lush
stands of emergent aquatic plants for perching and egg-laying. When the fully grown larvae leave the water, ready to emerge as the adult insect, they will travel a surprising distance, sometimes over a hundred metres from the river. Strangely, they often climb trees, before bursting out of their nymph exoskeleton. It is not unusual to find several discarded exuviae husks still clinging to a favoured riverside willow.
Mature males select a vantage point to watch for passing females or to launch an attack on a territorial rival. On a fine summer’s day, there are few pleasures better than sitting by a silvery river, and watching a male banded demoiselle dance his elaborate courtship display; flicking and fluttering his distinctive wings in the hope of persuading a female to mate.
Female banded demoiselle
Turntop36for wildlifetospotin thespring
Wildlife ROUNDUP
Unusual migrant birds and opportunistic gulls were some end of year highlights for photographer and writer Robin Chittenden.
Imagine starting birdwatching as a new hobby and within two weeks you find the bird of a lifetime. This is what happened to the lucky person who found a small warbler at Winterton this autumn. They managed to get some photographs that identified it as a species that had only been seen once before in Norfolk — the Asian desert warbler. This extremely rare visitor breeds in arid and desert areas of the Middle East and beyond — perhaps why it chose the dunes at Winterton
to refuel? Completely unconcerned by the fascinated birders gawping at it, the tiny bird continued to pluck at small insects in the dunes’ sparse bushes. Despite its tameness, it was still a frustrating bird to photograph well, often feeding out of view in the centre of the bush and always on the move.
Winterton had a run of unusual migrant birds this autumn, which ended with another dry country favourite, also hailing from the east, a desert wheatear.
This bird covered a huge area of beach during its stay, even going ‘missing’ for a whole day. This, on reflection, was not that remarkable, as much of the beach and associated dunes between Winterton and Waxham are roped off as no-go areas, to avoid potential disturbance to the breeding grey seals. There are several thousand seals there over the winter, so quite a sight to witness from the designated viewpoints. The pups are normally creamy white, thought to reflect chillier
‘The long-billed dowitcher returned for a third autumn to NWT Cley Marshes’
times when they would be better camouflaged against snow. However, with so many pups being born here, it's also possible to spot some of the more unusual black, velvety ones.
The seal colony attracts gulls to feed on afterbirths and the inevitable casualties from such a large colony. Spotted over the winter were ‘whitewinged’ gulls from the Arctic, two or three glaucous gulls and an Iceland gull, with most sightings being around the Horsey grey seal colony.
We saw some old favourites back in Norfolk towards the end of 2024. The long-billed dowitcher returned for a third autumn to NWT Cley Marshes, also making appearances at RSPB Titchwell, and finally Holkham Freshmarsh in late December. The female pallid harrier was again regularly seen in the late afternoons as it arrived back from a day’s hunting to roost on the saltmarsh at Warham Greens. Wintering harriers usually have a huge territory to hunt, and this would explain why it was only seen occasionally during the day, and
then only at the nearby sites of Stiffkey and North Point Pools. The pale ‘brown’ cormorant also returned to the Norwich area, most usually seen along the River Wensum in the city or at Whitlingham Country Park. It had moulted some of its paler feathers since last winter but was still easy to pick out from the other all-dark cormorants, unless underwater.
Abi reveals how she got her role, what she gets up to every day, and why the most challenging part of her job is her calendar…
Istudied Geography and International Development at university, and this inspired me to find a career in which I could create some sort of positive change — I just didn’t know at that time what this looked like for me! I went on to work in the waste and recycling sector, which allowed me to engage with the community and gain a deeper understanding of our environmental impact. Conservation seemed like the perfect next step, as it combines my love of the outdoors and my interest in environmental sustainability. I volunteered with a local conservation organisation and then started my Wilder Learning Officer role.
My job involves a lot of community engagement. I lead family and school sessions and attend events to inspire and encourage people to act for nature at home and help Norfolk’s wildlife. It’s very rewarding to see how excited the children get when they come to one of our reserves — some children may have never visited one before or seen the sea.
Being able to visit different nature reserves, habitats and wild spaces is one of the best parts of my job. I’ve had the opportunity to see so much wildlife, from bitterns and white-tailed eagles to swallowtail butterflies and water scorpions. My week varies in terms of where I’m based, what activities I’m leading or who I’m engaging with.
I’m hunting for minibeasts in the woodland or creatures in freshwater dykes one day and engaging with the community at an event the next. This makes my role fun and exciting — no one week is ever the same! However, this is also the most challenging part of my job — keeping on top of what activities I am doing and where I am going to be based. I am always thinking ahead!
Having a love of Norfolk’s wildlife is key to getting into a role like mine. Learning about our amazing wildlife in your own time is a great place to start. Try focusing on a specific area that interests you, such as identifying wildflowers, butterflies or bird song. Volunteering is also a good avenue into working in this sector and there are loads of amazing organisations for you to work with, depending on your interests.
Outside of work, I love walking and getting coffee with friends. More recently, I've got really into birdwatching. I now can't go anywhere without my binoculars!
Bittern
Abi leads family and school sessions at different nature reserves
International Women’s Day 2025
Ever wondered what it is like being a woman working in conservation? Four of our inspirational female colleagues told us more.
Chloe has always enjoyed spending time outdoors, been interested in nature and cared strongly about the environment. She studied biology at university with a focus on conservation-related modules, but just as important to her career path has been volunteering and seeking out other nature-loving people.
Eilish Rothney, Warden at Trinity Broads
Eilish loved getting messy outdoors as a child, which sparked her interest in nature. She went on to study environmental science, specialising in ecology. Following a range of jobs, from protecting breeding black-throated divers with the RSPB to being a conservation officer in Epping Forest, she landed her 'dream role' at NWT.
My role follows the seasons. Summer is a mixture of working with wonderful volunteers doing conservation management or out surveying aquatic plants, breeding birds and rare snails! Autumn is intense with meadow and reedbed management. Winter is spent more on scrub
management, while in spring we limit the conservation activities to avoid disturbance to breeding wildlife and concentrate more on infrastructure repairs and improvements.
It has been rewarding watching changes in attitudes over the years to women working in conservation, but it has been painfully slow at times. Women can be considered less able and more vulnerable than their male counterparts. Things are better now, but I think there is still a long way to go to ensure there are no unfair assumptions made subconsciously.
I always try to encourage my female volunteers to have a go at all tasks and have shown them how capable they are. We are just like biodiversity — our strength and sustainability as a society will be better the more diverse it is.
My job is to help monitor County Wildlife Sites. These are areas which are of county-level importance for the habitats and/or species they support. Advising landowners on how to manage their land to benefit nature is key to my role. I do a mixture of field work, visiting and surveying sites, and desk work, following up site visits and maintaining our records.
There is certainly a connection between empowering women and creating more sustainable environmental solutions. If more people feel they can make a difference, then there is a larger and more diverse pool of people from which to create and drive through environmental solutions.
If you are interested in the conservation of nature and want to work with lots of nice people, then I would recommend a career in this field. There are loads of roles to choose from to match your skill set. It may take a while to get your first paid job, but once you’re there, it’s worth it!
Eilish works with community groups near Trinity Broads to encourage awareness and involvement with conservation through meetings, talks and events.
Anne Simpson-Large, Deputy Reserves Manager for West Norfolk
A headmaster with a passion for red squirrels ensured that natural history was a priority at her school, inspiring Anne's future career. She went on to study geography with a focus on ecology, gaining practical conservation skills through volunteering with the National Trust in the UK and abroad.
I lead the West Norfolk team in delivering conservation work on our reserves. There’s a lot of repetitive hard, physical work in often challenging weather, but we get rewarded by some magical encounters with wildlife. I monitor a variety of our key species so we can keep a track of how they are doing and how our management work is affecting them. I also work with volunteers and engage with the public about our work.
I have encountered the perception that women are not capable of hard physical labour, which has led to missed opportunities in the past. However, I found that this attitude shifted quickly when people worked alongside me — and struggled to keep up!
It’s great to see more women are now working in conservation, but it has been a lot slower to happen than I would have expected. Until recently, I had only worked directly with two other women — in 20 years. My message to women interested in a conservation career is, don’t give up! Starting with volunteering can build up specific skills and give you the foundations to doing the job you dream of.
‘My message to women interested in a conservation career is, don’t give up!’
Holly Nichols, Nature Reserve Monitoring Officer
Holly's lifelong passion for science and animals ultimately guided her into her current role. She feels that her unconventional career path, which involved performing arts and hospitality before studying ecology as a mature student, has been instrumental in shaping who she is today.
My day-to-day role at NWT is varied! Currently the focus is implementing the monitoring programme which involves a mixture of desk-based work and being out in the field with the reserves teams collecting data. I am developing new ways to digitise the way we collect information. I also spend time analysing data using coding software, which is a huge passion of mine.
Recently, we trialled a new method of surveying fen orchid with the Broads South team supported by Plantlife and an expert botanist. Monitoring fen orchid currently takes many hours of work from the team and volunteers. My aim is to reduce the amount of resources needed without compromising the quality of the data.
I feel lucky to have not faced any challenges due to my gender. During my academic career, I was surrounded by many talented and successful conservationists and felt hugely supported — as I still do at NWT.
The more women, and people in general, that we can inspire to act for nature is a positive. To quote Whitney Houston: ‘the children are our future’! The sooner we engage people, especially the new tech generation, the better.
To those considering a career in conservation, I'd say ‘do it!’ It’s never too late. And volunteer as much as possible, it’s not only a foot in the door, but you can learn so much.
‘The more women, and people in general, that we can inspire to act for nature is a positive.’
Anne, pictured below at Grimston Warren, leads the West Norfolk team in delivering conservation work on our reserves.
Boost for Broadland’s rare plants
NWT Reserves Officer Bob Morgan explores the conservation work behind the success of some of our most treasured plants.
The protection and recovery of a rare plant species — particularly a nondescript sedge or obscure fern — is often a rather discreet affair. This is certainly the case when compared to the conservation of a glamorous and flamboyant bird, or a cute mammal with eco-engineering skills. Nevertheless, our staff and volunteers work hard to maintain, and in many cases increase, the population of rare plants across the county.
Broadland habitats have been managed by and for humans for centuries. Extensive reed and sedge beds were harvested for thatch, marshlands provided livestock grazing, and wet meadows fodder for horses. In this managed landscape, wild wetland plants had to adjust to the niches that were incidentally provided for them. The drainage of the once vast fenlands and canalisation of river systems meant these wild places soon started disappearing, and the onset of new building materials, mechanised farming and the motor car meant that the areas that did remain fell out of condition.
Norfolk Wildlife Trust now manages many of these remaining sites as nature reserves for specialist wetland plant habitats, and their associated fauna.
Bringing these areas back to their prime has been hard work, and their upkeep is a constant effort. Willow scrub needs cutting back, the myriads of dykes require clearing on a rotational basis, often using traditional handtools; and wet meadows need mowing. Reed harvesting continues in the Broads, and proves a massive benefit to wildlife, this is in conjunction with conservation reed cutting in areas not suitable for a commercial crop.
One such location is Ranworth Marsh, a special site tucked away from public view. The dyke systems here contain a wonderful array of aquatic plants, including many of the scarce stoneworts. The dyke edges play host to good numbers of the ‘Near-Threatened*’ marsh pea, found at only a handful of sites in the UK. Alongside the marsh pea grows cowbane, a ‘Vulnerable*’ umbellifer that is rare outside of the Broads and, as its name suggests, is toxic to cattle and has been eradicated from most of the country. Its cousin, milk parsley, is common here too and, of
course, essential to the lifecycle of the Broadland’s iconic swallowtail butterfly.
In summer the dyke edges are sprinkled with colour. The tall, purple loosestrife, the aromatic water mint, the pink hues of ragged robin and marsh mallow, and my favourite, the skullcap, whose little purple flowers peep out from among the reed stems. The ‘Critically Endangered*’ crested buckler fern is still found here, as is royal fern, which hides within the willow carr. Numerous orchids can be found on the mown areas of poor fen and bog myrtle
Swallowtail caterpillar
bushes poke up from the thick stands of saw sedge. Poor fen is characterised by limited nutrient availability on account of its water source, but provides the specific conditions orchids and many other specialist plants need to grow.
The work that has been carried out at Ranworth Marsh, and at our other Broadland nature reserves, proves that if the right conditions are created, not only will rare species prosper, but whole plant communities too.
*Ref: The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are intended to be an easily and widely understood system for classifying species at high risk of global extinction.
Left: Conservation work at Broadland sites, such as reed cutting, proves to be a massive benefit to wildlife.
At Ranworth Marsh, this work allows plant species such as milk parsley and bog myrtle to prosper.
Please note: Ranworth Marsh is not currently accessible to the public but can be viewed from our Ranworth Broad wildlife boat trip. The boardwalk to NWT Ranworth Broad visitor centre allows a wonderful opportunity to see many of the habitats and plants mentioned in this article.
Reviving the fen orchid
One of the most astounding plant recoveries in Norfolk has been the increase in fen orchid numbers, particularly at NWT Upton Fen and Marshes. In the 1990s, only a dozen or so flowering fen orchids were counted during survey work at the nature reserve. With numbers equally low at its four other sites, there was talk of local, even national extinction of the species.
Thankfully, all was not lost and over a period of several decades, work has gradually, and sympathetically, taken place at this sensitive site. An area of fen, favoured by the orchid, was cleared of encroaching scrub, water flow was improved, and new turf ponds were dug — these eventually ‘hover over’ with vegetation and mossy clumps. Combined with annual mowing, the result of all these methods of conservation is perfect conditions for fen orchids to thrive.
Twenty years on, fen orchid numbers are in their thousands and Upton Fen is the plant's main stronghold. What’s more, the successful translocation of fen orchids to suitable reserves in Suffolk has ensured its security for the foreseeable future.
The specific management for key species, such as fen orchid, has the happy consequence of ensuring their habitat companions flourish too. Across Upton other species of orchid, like early, southern and Pugsley’s
marsh orchids are doing well, and the declining marsh helleborine can still be found on the reserve. Another plant that is thriving, because of the fen orchid recovery work, is the marsh lousewort. This is an exceptionally important plant in species-rich poor fen. Being partially parasitic, its roots attach themselves to those of the surrounding reed and grasses. The extraction of nutrients from these domineering plants results in stunted growth, allowing others, particularly orchids, to compete for light rather than be crowded out by tall, thick reed growth.
Fen orchid
The 15 carefully excavated pingos have become havens for wildlife
Restoring life to ancient ponds
Sharing the science behind the restoration of Ice Age ponds is at the heart of a groundbreaking project in the Brecks.
We've been working with University College London (UCL), the Norfolk Geodiversity Partnership and Norfolk Ponds Project to re-establish ancient lost ponds across the Brecks with remarkable results for specialist aquatic wildlife.
Most ponds are human-made features, but in the Brecks, there are some truly ancient ponds and depressions, often known collectively as ‘pingos’, which originated through natural glacial
processes at the end of the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago. ‘Ghost’ pingos are pingos that have been filled in by humans, normally to facilitate larger scale agricultural production.
Using advanced mapping approaches and above and below ground investigations, the project team located and re-excavated 15 buried pingos. Eleven were on Watering Farm, adjacent to Thompson Common nature reserve and four were on two nearby privately
owned sites. The ponds had been infilled over centuries to create more farmland.
Careful study and then excavation revealed sediment layers containing dormant seeds, sparking an astonishing revival of wetland biodiversity. In just two years, over 90 wetland plant species have emerged, including the rare and internationally significant fen pondweed, various-leaved pondweed, and lesser bearded stonewort. Remarkably, nine of the excavated ‘ghost pingos’ now
Remarkably, nine of the excavated ‘ghost pingos’ now qualify for Priority Habitat Status due to their exceptional ecological value.
qualify for Priority Habitat Status due to their exceptional ecological value.
The ponds have also become havens for wildlife, hosting 50 species of water beetle — 15 of conservation concern — as well as common frogs, toads, great crested newts, and the unexpected arrival of nine-spined sticklebacks.
Professors Helene Burningham and Carl Sayer from UCL were amazed by the amount of life that they recorded in the restored pingos ponds, saying:
‘We think we have pioneered one of the world’s most successful ecological restoration techniques and are watching it unfold and reveal its true potential. As we have gone along, we have learnt how to best reveal the ponds by a careful step-by-step excavation process. If you can find and expose the old store of seeds of past wetlands, all sorts of rare plants species can recover and with the plants comes the habitat for a vast array of other creatures. We are truly astonished by what has been achieved in this project.’
The project is part of the Brecks Fen Edge and Rivers Landscape Partnership, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund
Continued on p22
Nine-spined stickleback
Common frog
A key outcome of the work has been the creation of a ‘blueprint’ for pingo restoration — detailed instructions setting out the science behind restoring lost ponds as well as ‘do-it-yourself’ guidance.
‘The range of expertise we’ve had on this project has meant we’ve gathered a huge amount of specialist knowledge about pingo restoration,’ says Ben Newton, NWT Wilder Landscapes Adviser, who coordinated the project. ‘We know that wildlife needs bigger, better and more joined up habitat — so it makes perfect sense to share our knowledge so that others can play their part in restoring these unique periglacial features.’
In undertaking the re-excavation of pingos the team have also made several discoveries of archaeological and geological significance. ‘This has been a rare and marvellous opportunity
to investigate pond sediments which settled out over thousands of years,’ says Tim Holt-Wilson of the Norfolk Geodiversity Partnership. ‘A star find was a log with possible tool marks which we dated to 1350 BC using radiocarbon analysis — that means the early middle Bronze Age. Deeper down, some of the patterns in the chalky pond basement layers must have been made by ground ice 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age.’
The success of the project is a beacon of hope for Norfolk’s wetland wildlife, as well as across the wider country. We very much hope that others will be inspired to create even more of these fantastic features.
More information can be found at: norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/ LostPonds
The success of the project is a beacon of hope for Norfolk’s wetland wildlife, as well as across the wider country.
Passing
We’re already applying what we’ve learnt to revive even more pingos at NWT-owned Mere Farm. Thanks to funding from Natural England's Species Recovery Programme, we are working alongside the Woodland Trust and the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC) specifically to expand habitat for pool frogs so that they can spread out from our neighbouring Thompson Common nature reserve.
The range of expertise we’ve had on this project has meant we’ve gathered a huge amount of specialist knowledge about pingo restoration.
Northern pool frog
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Norfolk’s nature needs a home
An
appeal on behalf of our county’s wildlife
What is the first thing we do when we return home? We may slip off our shoes or brew a nice cup of tea. We probably also breathe a sigh of relief. Home. This is our sanctuary.
We are no different from any other animal. Every creature needs a safe place, where they can prosper. But while we have created more security and prosperity for our species than ever before, many wilder animals are losing their homes. Only 10.5% of land in Norfolk is in protected areas*, and not all of these are well-managed for nature. Cherished species are struggling more than ever before — from hedgehogs and frogs to swifts and swallowtail butterflies — one in six British species are threatened with extinction**. As we continue to build
*according to The Norfolk and Suffolk Natural Capital compendium list
**State of Nature report 2023. The report’s findings show that one in six (16%) of the over ten thousand species studied in Great Britain are at risk of becoming extinct
Swallowtail caterpillar
new houses, roads and industries, and intensively farm the countryside with pesticides and fertilisers, wild species are driven from their heartlands. As the climate changes more swiftly than ever before, coastal erosion, flooding and drought imperil the homes of many more species — alongside our own.
We must take action. Norfolk’s wildlife needs our help. That is why we have launched our Norfolk’s Nature Needs a Home appeal. Norfolk Wildlife Trust is already taking practical action to save, protect and restore homes for all wildlife — both rare and common, treasured and overlooked. We must redouble our efforts — and with your support for our appeal, we can.
NWT President, Patrick Barkham
Save our swallowtails
Our warming world is changing our landscapes. Many Norfolk species can no longer rely on their traditional habitat or predictable sources of food. The iconic swallowtail, Britain’s largest native butterfly, is one.
We know how to help it thrive: at NWT’s Hickling Broad nature reserve, dedicated conservation management has seen its caterpillar’s food plant, milk parsley, thrive, and healthy numbers of swallowtails. Traditional fen and reedbed management — cutting reed and sedge for thatch — is vital. NWT reserves are cut on a rotation to maintain floristic diversity.
But new climatic challenges require new technology. Water levels are becoming higher on the Broads in winter, drastically reducing the window when reeds can be cut. So the Trust is investing in an amphibious machine which will enable it to cut reeds even when they are submerged by water — ensuring it can get fen and reedbed management just right.
Many of the swallowtail’s breeding grounds are below sea level and, in the longer term, milk parsley will be killed by increasingly saline waters. Climate change will cause parts of the Broads to become more regularly flooded — or permanently salty. New homes will have to be found for milk parsley, and the swallowtail, at slightly higher altitudes or further upriver. NWT is exploring whether milk parsley can grow at more of its valley-bottom reserves further inland; these could become vital future strongholds for the swallowtail.
Reviving lost ponds is a proven boost for nature but we need to do more –across the county. And we can –with your help.
Pools for pool frogs
The Brecks of West Norfolk are a rare and precious habitat of sandy heaths, filled with unique flora and fauna. In the 1990s, the northern pool frog, which features a vivid bright yellow or green stripe along its back, became extinct in Britain. Since 2005, it has been reintroduced using animals from Sweden, and re-established at its last redoubt — NWT’s Thompson Common.
‘The northern pool frogs are doing really well at Thompson,’ says Jon Preston, Conservation Manager for NWT. ‘The population is expanding both its number and, importantly, its range.’
To increase the frog’s distribution, NWT is improving its favoured habitat — especially the pingos, rare glacial ponds which the frogs love, as long as they are not shaded by too much vegetation. Grazing by Thompson’s resident herd of Konik horses and by cattle in summer is part of meticulous management that benefits the frogs and a host of other species.
Excitingly, NWT has recreated six ‘ghost’ pingos on former arable land at Mere Farm, close to Thompson Common. The Trust is also clearing trees and vegetation from overgrown pingos at neighbouring Stow Bedon Common to return life to those waters. It is only a matter of time before the northern pool frogs take the short leap from Thompson
Grazing on Thompson Common benefits pool frogs and a host of other species.
to find new homes next door. It is vital that they do, so that this ultra-rare species is more resilient in the future.
Reviving lost ponds is a proven boost for nature but we need to do more — across the county. And we can — with your help.
‘It’s really exciting,’ says Jon. ‘It’s stunning how quickly the new pingos have gone from bare earth and water to having a long list of species from water beetles to pond plants.’
Northern pool frog
Donate today and help secure a home for Norfolk’s nature
See p29 for details
Migrants like swifts and cuckoos, return each spring to find their homes and feeding grounds under threat or disappearing.
More space to procreate
Some rare birds have made huge comebacks in recent years, thanks to dedicated conservation action. The common crane became extinct in Britain in the 1500s. By 1997, it looked like the bittern was following — just 11 male bitterns were left 'booming' across the whole country.
And yet cranes returned home, secretly, in the 1980s when Scandinavian birds quietly repopulated Norfolk marshland around Hickling and Horsey. More recently, the bittern has bounced back: 228 booming males were counted in 2022.
This is no accident. Both species have flourished in Norfolk where NWT has worked with partners to expand and restore reedbeds and fen habitat. At Hickling and Potter Heigham, grazing marshes and arable land have been returned to a former reedy state. At NWT’s Upton reserve, a former arable and grazing area appropriately called Crane’s Marsh is today a mosaic of watery scrapes, open waterways and dense reedbeds in which cranes like to hide away. The charismatic birds are now breeding there.
These species, alongside spoonbills and marsh harriers, continue to find more homes across Norfolk’s revived wetlands thanks to the restoration efforts of NWT and other organisations but their safe havens are still fragments in a wider landscape. Unfortunately, many other birds, especially muchloved migrants like swifts and cuckoos, return each spring to find their homes and feeding grounds under threat or disappearing. With your support, we can do more to help all these species.
One species in desperate need of our support is the hedgehog. In 2020, this once ubiquitous small mammal was put on the IUCN’s Red List as vulnerable to extinction in Britain. In the last two decades, numbers have declined by between a third and threequarters in rural areas. The largest declines have been in eastern England.
NWT’s Foxley Wood is Norfolk’s largest ancient wood; it was recorded in the Domesday Book and has been the same size for centuries. Now, it is growing larger again, as NWT acquires nearby land to expand the wood as an even better home for wildlife.
'When you create new woodland, you create more edge,' says Steve Collin, Nature Conservation Manager for NWT. 'Hedgehogs are not really a woodland species but they are an edge species — they need that kind of foraging ground. Once the wood starts to spill into adjacent areas, that will really help them.'
The Foxley extensions will not be dense, planted woodland but more open wood pasture with rough grassland, glades and rides alongside
scrubby thickets — ideal earthwormforaging for hedgehogs and ideal feeding grounds for endangered species including barn owls and the rare barbastelle bats already finding a sanctuary in the wood.
NWT can only provide new homes for wildlife across all areas of the county by working in partnership with communities, farmers, councils, businesses and people with gardens — and doing that requires your support too.
‘Helping hedgehogs is about putting the right habitat there and connecting that habitat up — good hedgerows, ponds, woodland edges and meadows,’ says Helen Baczkowska, Nature Recovery Manager for NWT. ‘One gardener or even one parish council can do it, but we can do so much more if we bring people together to act at scale for nature. We don’t need to rewild every bit of Norfolk but nature has a home among us — in the trees, parks and plants that are all around us. Nurturing those is really important.’
One species in desperate need of our support is the hedgehog.
Hedgehog
Into the future
Recent history has proven that we can all save species from extinction if we combine science, willpower and practical action. Nature reserves — secure homes, protected for wildlife in perpetuity, which NWT has created, maintained and enriched for 99 years and counting — are a vital part of the picture. NWT continues to buy pockets of Norfolk to protect existing wild homes or rapidly create new ones — whether thrilling new reedbeds, pingos, woodlands or meadows.
Realistically, however, nature reserves will always remain a small proportion of Norfolk’s rolling countryside. We need land for food, and so NWT is working in partnership with farmers and landowners, providing expertise to assist a transition to more nature friendly farming. And we seek to expand our advice and advocacy to help everyone from schools to businesses; only together can we support the web of life upon whom we ultimately depend.
Yes, I’d like to help give Norfolk’s nature
a home
Donate at norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/NatureNeedsAHome
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Donate by card/cheque using the form below. Cut out and send to Freepost RTKH-LGSE-TCJS, Nature Needs a Home, Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Bewick House, 22 Thorpe Road, Norwich NR1 1RY
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Despite all our efforts, wildlife is still losing homes across the county. Now, more than ever, we must take action to save once-common species. Norfolk would be a much sadder, quieter and less healthy place if hedgehogs, swallowtails, swifts and northern pool frogs no longer called it home. Please give what you can to our appeal and help us redouble our efforts to provide places where wild nature can find safety and a secure future. Norfolk’s nature needs a home.
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Creating
networks
for nature
We’ve been making some special sites for wildlife even better habitats for a variety of Norfolk’s rarest and most threatened plant and animal species.
It’s all been part of The Wildlife Trusts' national ‘Network for Nature’ five-year programme, which aimed to address the impacts of the UK’s major road network on our wildlife, made possible thanks to generous funding from National Highways.
Here in Norfolk, we received a share of the funding to improve wildlife habitat at sites found close to the A11 and A47 including NWT East Winch, Silfield Newt Reserve and Scarning Meadow.
As the project ends, we are delighted to be seeing the fruits of our labour — or the newts of our labour in some cases!
Scarning and Potters Fens
We’ve been able to improve two of our county’s most special sites for wildlife, found along the A47 near Dereham. Scarning and Potters Fens are recognised as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and form part of Norfolk Valley Fens Special Area of Conservation, due to their sheer value for some very rare species. By winching out scrub on these sites, we have created what will become incredibly special patches of these fens for wildlife. The holes left as the roots pull up the soil have filled with clear sparkling water with a very special chemical composition — due to being fed by the rare calcareous spring sitting just below the fen surface. Over the next 20 years, these special ‘turf ponds’ will support some of the UK's rarest mosses and liverworts, which in turn create the foundation for even more nationally rare wildlife to thrive, such as small red damselfly.
Continued on p32
NWT East Winch
East Winch is found outside of Kings Lynn, directly along the A47. Thanks to the Network for Nature project, we’ve been able to transform our understanding of the importance of the site for wildlife and how it is being impacted by climate change and nitrogen pollution.
Groovy peat helps rare plants thrive
Like all of Norfolk’s semi-natural habitats, East Winch is receiving increasing levels of nitrogen pollution. When combined with warmer, wetter winters, this causes fast-growing species such as purple moor grass to thrive, shading out the lowergrowing, less tolerant plants and reducing the area of bare ground needed by invertebrates and reptiles.
After some careful planning and the help of highly skilled machine operators, we used an excavator with a 'toothed bucket' to tease out the tussocks of purple moor grass. These works leave a damp, bare peat surface with a series of ridges and furrows. This helps seedlings susceptible to drought and frost to germinate in the sheltered troughs created by each tooth channel.
We’ve been delighted to see an abundance of scarce and threatened plants grow from seed contained within the peat layer. Seedlings popping up last year included approximately 350 petty whin plants — an incredible result considering a single specimen
Work carried out at East Winch included turf-stripping and reprofiling of the pools, benefiting an array of species from woodlark to sundew.
of this declining plant was last seen on East Winch in 1987! Over time, we hope that we’ve created the ideal conditions for another rare plant — marsh gentian — to return to its former extent on the reserve.
Digging for victory
Over time, the many shallow pools found across East Winch have become filled with decomposing vegetation. By carefully re-profiling the pools by performing delicate excavations, we’ve restored the bare, peaty margins that are vital for a host of species that once thrived on the site. The edges of the pools are now studded with carpets of round-leaved and oblong-leaved sundews — a fascinating pair of insectivorous plants that have declined dramatically in recent years.
We also created two deeper pools that will remain wet even in dry years to provide habitat for aquatic species that would otherwise perish in periods of drought, such as blacktailed skimmer dragonfly and redeyed damselfly. The pools also provide drinking water for our Dartmoor ponies that graze on the reserve.
And this work hasn't just benefited plants. The tussocks of purple moor grass were removed and placed on the edge of the site where they slowly decompose, providing new habitat for fungi and basking reptiles.
Over on patches of acid grassland found on the site, atmospheric nitrogen pollution had resulted in vigorous grasses and mosses carpeting the ground, smothering smaller plant species. By turfstripping areas, we’ve created a mosaic of bare and vegetated dry acid grassland, which has now been colonised by nesting solitary bees and wasps, and plants such as sheep’s sorrel. In turn, we’re seeing woodlark nesting close to the stripped areas, using the invertebrate-rich
Woodlark
When the A11 road was made into a dual carriageway some important habitat for protected great crested newts was destroyed, and the Silfield Newt Reserve was created by National Highways to compensate for this loss. We’ve been able to improve the condition of this County Wildlife Site, with a particular focus on bringing its ponds into tip top condition through scrub clearance, excavation and by removing invasive species. We also created a brand new pond, improved the variety of plants found in the grassland areas through sowing handcollected seed from suitable nearby sites, and revived areas of woodland and hedgerows through coppicing.
As well as benefiting species such as dragonflies, pond beetles and bats,
Left: Ponds at Silfield Newt Reserve have been brought into tip top condition through scrub clearance, excavation and by removing invasive species.
Below: The work has benefited species including great crested newts and pond beetles.
surveys for great crested newt carried out after our work showed extremely encouraging results — newts were found in several of the ponds that were created and improved as part of the project!
Scarning Meadow
Scarning Meadow is a County Wildlife Site found close to the A47, important for its wet grassland and fen habitats that support plants including meadowsweet, meadow vetchling and greater spearwort. The grassland has, in recent years, become dominated by tall coarse grasses, and the Network for Nature project has enabled us to restore the site and return it to sustainable management. We mowed
an area of the meadows owned by Breckland District Council with help from a local volunteer group and introduced grazing to an area owned by the Diocese of Norwich. Over time, this will open up the grassy sward and support greater abundance and diversity of plant species including common spotted orchid, fen bedstraw and ragged robin.
Spring is the time to look out for our returning swallows, martins and swifts. Their aerial dexterity and association with human habitation makes them the most noticeable and probably best loved of the summer migrants. However, they need our help, as all three species are in serious population decline, with house martins and swifts being of particular concern.
Log your sightings
Look up around your own home, village, town or even Norwich city centre. See if you can spot an active nest site from a distance and help us put these wonderful birds on the map by submitting your nest site records.
norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/SpotterSurvey
Barn swallow
Returning from Southern Africa in late March or April, the barn swallow’s twittering song and constant aerial activity is a delight after a long winter. As its name suggests, its preferred nest site is tucked in a high corner of a barn. The nest is a shallow mud and straw cup and is often wedged on or between a beam. However, swallows are very creative and will use stables, bird hides or even an old shed, if constant access is available.
HOW TO IDENTIFY
The upper parts are a dark, iridescent blue and the belly a creamy white. The forehead and chin are a bright rust-red. The wings are long and sharply angled. The tail is deeply forked, with the outer feathers greatly extended, particularly in the case of the male bird. They can be quite gregarious with several nesting in the same barn. Swallows often gather on wires when their young have fledged, or prior to migration.
DID YOU KNOW?
Swallows have been known to nest in old mineshafts — one nest in Cornwall was 17 metres underground and was occupied by the same bird for four summers. In autumn, swallows start to gather in large numbers prior to migration, and some reedbed roosts can hold several thousand birds.
House martin
Like the swallow, house martins arrive in late March. Large flocks, mixed with sand martins, are often found feeding over lakes and broads during migration.
House martins would have formerly nested on cliffs, and some still do. Now, their mud nests are usually tucked under the eaves of buildings — even in urban areas. The nest is well made and globular in shape, with a small entrance hole at the upper rim. It must be positioned for easy access to flying insects and wet mud — for nest building and repairs.
HOW TO IDENTIFY
Compared to the swallow, the house martin is a rather neat, compact bird. The crown and back are a dark iridescent blue, while the wings and tail are blacker. Their chin and belly are pure white, with the most notable feature being a square-shaped white rump. Small groups can be found twisting and turning in aerial pursuit of flying insects.
DID YOU KNOW?
When house martins were more common, colonies could grow to substantial proportions with nests plastered on top of one another. Although the formerly numerous house sparrow would frequently oust the owners. Often the young of an earlier brood will help feed the second and third brood nestlings.
Swift
Swifts are often associated, and sometimes confused, with martins and swallows, but an observer will realise that they are very different once familiar with them. Swifts arrive in the UK from April onwards, later than other summer migrants, then leave in August. Formerly cave and cliff nesters, they find roof cavities in old buildings a suitable alternative. They often stay faithful to a building for decades, with offspring taking over the nest, or more commonly finding a nest site nearby.
HOW TO IDENTIFY
Other than a little white chin, swifts are uniformly dark brown in plumage, although they appear black against a blue sky. They have rather cigar-like bodies with long sickle-shaped wings. In spring, the newly arrived birds scream through the air, a shrill call uttered as they chase one another in synchronized flight. Swifts will enter roofs via a gap in the tiles or under the eaves, flying into the small entry hole at seemingly breakneck speed. The actual nest is a rudimentary cup of feathers gathered whilst in flight.
DID YOU KNOW?
Swifts feed, bathe, sleep and even mate on the wing, a young bird leaving the nest for the first time may remain in the air for two or three years. A hobby is the only regular predator of swifts, and often it is only young inexperienced birds that are caught.
Explore
Seek out spring wildlife
Spring brings welcome sights and sounds after a long winter. The cascading song of the willow warbler, or a peacock butterfly tripping through the garden, perhaps the glimpse of a blackbird building its perfect nest deep inside a hedge. Few can deny spotting the first spring swallow as a firm favourite, invoking a sense of wellbeing, which is no doubt an emotion experienced by countless others, stretching far back in time. But, this spring, why not consider searching out the less familiar?
Walk the paths between carpets of green-winged orchids at NWT New Buckenham Common or listen for the far-travelling ‘boom’ of a male bittern at NWT Hickling Broad and Marshes. Find tumbling lapwing, peewitting in a warm blue sky at our Cley and Salthouse Marshes nature reserve. Listen for the lark high above, out of sight but clear of voice, the sound of wide-open spaces in springtime; the cry of the redshank its only rival. The dawn chorus is perhaps the most prized of spring spectaculars. Starting in mid-March with over eager blackbirds, robins, wrens and song thrushes, it builds until the first week of May, when resident locals are accompanied by blackcaps and whitethroats. With luck you may
Listen for the echoing, quick-fire tap, of a great spotted woodpecker knocking out its territorial claim.
RESERVE HIGHLIGHT
Ransom
The wonderful garlic fragrance of ransom, caught by a gentle breeze, percolates through our springtime ancient woodlands.
3 species to spot this spring
Brimstone butterfly
NWT East Wretham Heath
This is a fascinating place to visit any time of year; however, in spring, it really comes alive. The rabbit-cropped grassland allows us to imagine how the vast Brecklands would have once looked, stretched out for miles around. As a result, the nature reserve is noted for its many wildflowers, many of which have been lost from the surrounding agricultural land, such as early forgetme-not, harebell and viper’s bugloss.
The abundance of rabbits here means there is a good chance of seeing a stoat or weasel bounding across the open ground, while skylark sing their joyous song high above. Early spring can bring wheatear,
and sometimes stone curlew, passing through on migration.
The site is famed for its lakes, known as ‘meres’. The strange fluctuating waters of Langmere and Ringmere are home to many rare invertebrates and aquatic plants. In spring, waders can be seen feeding around the mere edges — a short stop during their long migration.
There is also a plantation of gnarly old Scots pines, believed to have been planted around the time of the Battle of Waterloo. The plantation’s age means it is fantastic for woodland insects and birds. Keep a watchful eye out for the attractive male redstart, now very rare in East Anglian woodlands, or the declining spotted flycatcher. Woodlark breed here and have recently increased in number across our Breckland sites. Listen out for their wonderful song from February and through early spring.
Often our first butterfly to emerge, the large buttery yellow male brimstone can be found in most places across the county. Its mate is paler in colour and obvious by its larger size.
Bluebells
A vast carpet of bluebells in the dappled spring sunshine of an
Yellowhammer
Any walk along a Norfolk country lane in springtime is made better by the jangling song of the yellowhammer. Delivered from a hedge top, it demands ‘A little bit of bread, but no cheese’.
Take action
Safeguarding Aylsham’s swifts
Aylsham Swift Group was set up in 2022 by Pat Grocott and Tracy Brighten with the aim of safeguarding the small population of swifts in the market town and helping them to thrive and increase. The inspiration to do this came from Pat attending an NWT guided walk led by Norwich Swift Network.
Swifts are amazing birds that spend the winter in southern Africa and return to breed in spring. Outside the breeding season they live an entirely aerial life, eating and sleeping on the wing. Surprisingly and contrary to appearances, they are more closely related to hummingbirds than they are to swallows and house martins with which they are often confused. They have remarkable adaptations to suit their aerial lifestyle being the fastest birds in level flight, feeding exclusively on insects and traveling great distances to find food.
In Aylsham and much of the east of England, their preferred nest sites are under pantiles in our older buildings. As these buildings are renovated, the little gaps and crevices in which they nest are being blocked off, leaving swifts homeless and new breeders with nowhere to nest.
Help us monitor swifts this spring by taking part in our spotter survey See p34
Loss of nest sites and the crash in insect populations are believed to be the main reasons behind the 62% decline in their population between 1995 and 2021 (RSPB figures) resulting in swifts being placed on the Red List of conservation concern in the UK.
To find out more about Aylsham Swift Group:
Email: aylshamswifts@gmail.com
Facebook: Aylsham Swift Group X (Twitter): @AylshamSwifts
Swifts really need our help and all over the country local swift groups are trying to do just that. Aylsham Swift Group has focused on raising public awareness to protect existing nest sites and creating new nesting opportunities. We carry out surveys and have identified the streets where swifts nest and delivered information postcards to over 300 households advising residents how they can help. We publish articles in Just Aylsham, lead guided walks and have stalls at local events where we provide information about swift boxes, swift bricks and playing swift calls to entice young birds to explore new artificial nesting opportunities. We sell swift boxes and have installed 30 swift nesting boxes in the belfry of Aylsham Parish Church.
Our work to help swifts depends on support from local people and
community groups. Aylsham Parish Church enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to host swifts in the belfry and Aylsham Community Shed built the boxes with wood donated by local firm C T Baker. Aylsham Wildlife Society donated funds for printing and many individuals have donated to our funds. Norwich Swift Network give us advice and practical help. Through trying to help swifts we have made many new friends and, we hope, found new champions for swifts.
Did you know?
The parents of an Aylsham chick may fly as far away as Germany following a weather depression where insects congregate, before returning with a bolus of insect food for their young.
Boosting the wildlife in your garden couldn’t be simpler or more exciting. What you need is a garden pond. Believe me you won’t regret it, says the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt.
There’ll be a little digging. You need to go a bit deeper than you’d expect. Just over a metre is good. All the wonderful pond creatures that are going to make their home in your garden need somewhere to shelter away from the ice that will form in winter.
Then you’ll need a pond liner, gravel, some native UK pond plants and aquatic compost bags. Then you just fill it with tap water and wait. This is when the magic happens.
During the first week or so your pond will go a sickly shade of green as algae makes itself at home. If you’re lucky, you’ll get your first creature in the second or third week. Mine was a hoglouse, a watery cousin of the woodlouse.
Next came mosquito larvae. I had loads, wriggling and squirming beneath the surface. I was
transfixed — my wife was not so impressed. But don’t worry, they are the lure that is going to tempt in other creatures for whom mosquito larvae are the tastiest of treats.
The nymphs of dragonflies and damselflies can’t get enough of them. Frogs and newts love them too. And if any do manage to hatch into actual mozzies, they’ll be dinner for swallows, swifts and bats.
What you’ve created is an entire ecosystem, an intricate food web. The algae is food for the insects who are food for the frogs who are food for hedgehogs. You get the picture.
When you find yourself wondering why you are spending so long just staring at your new pond here’s the answer: what is unfolding before you is nothing less than the story of life on earth.
Justin Rowlatt is the BBC’s first ever climate editor. He describes his job as reporting from the front line of climate change. Justin is also a huge fan of ponds. He put his in three years ago and hasn’t looked back.
Pond algae
Learn to love your algae. It is the bottom of the food chain and without it your pond would be a lot less enticing.
Hoglouse
Hoglice are an aquatic relative of the woodlouse. And before you get sniffy about these little lice, you should know they are one of the most ancient animal species on earth at more than 300 million years old.
Rat-tailed maggot
This is one of my favourite pond creatures. Think of maggots but with snorkels attached to their bums. Except because rat-tailed maggots are aquatic, they are wonderfully clean and mutate into beautiful hoverflies.
Marsh marigolds
There are few sights more cheerful than a clump of bright yellow marsh marigolds. Think buttercups but bigger and framed by dramatic dark foliage. They provide a hiding place for frogs and nectar for insects.
Yellow flag iris
There are lots of water iris species around the world but only one real choice for UK ponds, in my opinion. The yellow flag iris, the only aquatic iris native to the UK.
Hornwort
This is one of the workhorses of a thriving pond. Hornwort is a dark green plant that floats beneath the surface releasing life-giving oxygen. But beware, just like algae, happy hornwort will grow like Topsy.
Large red damselfly
On a sunny spring day there is always at least one red damselfly hovering, like a tiny helicopter, over my pond. These creatures live out their entire lives before your eyes and their nymphs hoover up mozzie larvae.
Common frog
We have three. All slightly different colours. My wife insists she recognises each one. You’ll be spellbound as they lay their spawn. The tiny black dots in the centre evolve into surprisingly rapacious tadpoles and then, majestic frogs.
Learn Tern with
INick Acheson Author and NWT Ambassador
t’s spring and the flowers are out! So far, so obvious, but I wonder how often we question what we know about the glorious things we call flowers. After all, the marsh marigold, red dead-nettle, hazel, dog’s mercury and sweet vernal grass we see in bloom at this time of year, have radically different flowers from one another, each refined by evolution to approach the problem of passing genes into future generations in a very different way.
The Angiosperm clade (distinguished by the fruits which contain its seeds) includes the third of a million described species we term flowering plants. The first flowering plants appear in the fossil record in or shortly before the Cretaceous Period (named after the selfsame chalk that lies under most of Norfolk), between 180 and 130 million years ago. These earliest flowers were radially symmetrical (or actinomorph, to those in the know) with both male and female parts, including a prominent female ovary. This is the design echoed today by our marsh marigold (and most of its relatives in the Ranunculaceae or buttercup family), which is the reason that buttercups come at the start of wildflower field guides (arranged, as they are, in what is considered evolutionary order).
It is assumed that the earliest flowers evolved to be pollinated (as buttercups are today) by insects. In the millions of years since this astounding relationship bestowed world domination on flowering plants (helping make them the fundamental building blocks of almost all terrestrial, freshwater and coastal ecosystems), countless variations in flower form have evolved.
Top to bottom: red dead-nettle; hazel; marsh marigold
Some plants, such as the familiar red dead-nettle of pavement cracks and waste ground, have retained male and female reproductive parts but have developed bilaterally symmetrical flowers (zygomorph, don’t you know?), fusing the petals of an open flower (such as a buttercup) into an elegantly sprung tube, which allows anthers to dab pollen onto the right part of the right insect when triggered by its weight.
Other flowering plants, such as hazel, have remained monoecious (with male and female reproductive organs on the same individual) but have evolved separate male and female flowers. Beside a hazel’s dangly, pollen-laden male catkins, tiny, anemone-like, burgundy-coloured female flowers may be found. These are waiting to catch passing pollen as — like grasses and many other plants — hazel has also
evolved away from insect-pollination, depending on the wind to shake its catkins and distribute their masses of pollen. Still other flowering plants, including dog’s mercury and holly, have become dioecious, with entirely separate male and female plants. It’s spring and the flowers are out! But flowers are hugely diverse in form, function and evolutionary history. This spring and summer, perhaps we will give flowers the closer look that they deserve, marvelling at the structures they have evolved with which to reproduce; structures which make our world a fascinating, rich and beautiful place to inhabit.
For anyone with an interest in gardening and garden design
We run a wide range of short and long courses including the ten-week Certi cate in Practical Horticulture and the One Year Diploma in Garden Design for anyone wanting to become a garden designer. On Facebook, Instagram or email info@norfolkschoolofgardening.co.uk www.norfolkschoolofgardening.co.uk
Cloud Ballet, Holkham
GET INVOLVED
Conservation begins at home for Norfolk businesses
Take part in our 2025 Nature Photography Competition
Our annual nature photography competition is returning for 2025, with submissions opening later this year! We’re looking for photographs of birds, mammals, marine life, bugs, plants, fungi and landscapes taken in Norfolk — anywhere from one of our reserves to your own back garden. Photos will need to have been taken within the past year, so now is the perfect time to get outside and start capturing Norfolk’s stunning nature in preparation.
Creating greenspace at Midwich HQ in Diss
As well as supporting Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s work for nature on our reserves and in the wider landscape, our corporate partners are increasingly looking to have impact for species and habitats on their own premises. Investors in Wildlife ‘Wildlife Champions’ Midwich have recently funded NWT to conduct a survey and restoration project at their HQ in Diss.
The commercial site is base to around 250 colleagues, and its footprint includes a sizeable outdoor area, until recently something of a biodiversity ‘desert’. In spring last year, NWT’s Nature Recovery Adviser Ella visited Midwich, and conducted a survey of this external space. From this she recommended a host of enhancements, and in December led two days of volunteering by staff to scarify and sow wildflower areas, plant a 30m hedge line of native species, and
plant staked birch saplings. This will be the start of a transformation for wildlife which will ultimately include ponds and further planting, and a patio area for staff to relax and enjoy the nature!
‘We are delighted to have started a journey to create a thriving biodiverse greenspace at our global HQ in Diss,' Ben Thompson, Midwich Sustainability Lead, told us. ‘Dedicated Midwich volunteers have been rolling up their sleeves, scarifying, digging and planting, to kick start this exciting new project. A huge thank you to Norfolk Wildlife Trust for partnering with us to bring this vision to life’.
Midwich were able to report that this initiative promotes their United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) No. 15 (Life on land) and No.3 (Good health and well-being).
If you would like to find out more about how your business can make a difference for nature where you are, please contact our Corporate Partnerships team at wilderbusiness@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
Winners of the competition will receive a prize, with a selection of our favourite entries also forming our 2026 calendar and featuring in an exhibition. This year we’re adding a new mobile phone category, meaning that you don’t even need to own a camera to take part! Please keep an eye on our website for more details and dates to be announced soon: norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/ PhotoComp
Last year's winning image by Stuart Merchant
Welcoming new Trustees
Trustees play a critical role at Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Together with our senior leadership team, they share ultimate responsibility for directing how we are run. We asked three of our new Trustees elected at last year’s AGM to tell us more about themselves and why they chose to get on board.
Bailey Tait
Bailey brings several years of campaigning and communications experience in the charity sector, specialising in wildlife conservation and climate change. She currently works in local government and is also the Executive Editor for Dragonfly News magazine. Her favourite species to spot are glorious marsh harriers and natterjack toads.
‘There is nothing better than being out in nature, especially the Norfolk coast. Having grown up in Norfolk and then honing my skills in other parts of the country, I can’t wait to be back and apply everything I’ve learned to support the charity that first ignited my lifelong love of nature and ultimately my career. Nothing is more important than protecting our precious landscapes and the species that call Norfolk their home, including us!’
Richard Carter
With a background in finance and sustainability, Richard worked as an operational lead for a large regional company before moving to a teaching role. He chairs the board at IEMA — the professional body for anyone working in environmental sustainability.
‘I have a long-standing passion for the natural world and recognise the importance of helping our planet’s biodiversity thrive. Joining NWT is personally relevant to me having spent most of my life in the region. There’s no doubt that the climate crisis will affect more people as it progresses, and access to nature is essential for our immediate wellbeing and our longevity as a species. The Trust has a significant role to play here, and I’m keen to help them navigate this course.’
Richard Powell
Richard is an environmental and charity advisor specialising in climate change and sustainability, as well as charity business planning and governance. He previously spent 24 years as Regional Director of the RSPB in the east of England, leading teams in creating nature reserves across the UK.
‘It was my wonderful primary school teacher, Mr Kitchener, who first inspired my love of nature through taking us on trips to places such as Breydon Water and Scroby Sands. My passion for landscape stems from my time at the RSPB and growing up amid Norfolk's big skies and beaches — a place I've always lived. Having worked with NWT in many guises through my career, I'm now honoured to join this incredible team as a Trustee.’
Can you help us to create more space for nature to thrive and inspire more people to take action for nature?
This is an opportunity for you to join our friendly team of Trustees who bring wide-ranging skills and expertise to the Trustee Board.
We are looking for people who are passionate about Norfolk’s wildlife, from all backgrounds, who want to make a difference.
Don’t worry if you don’t have experience of being on a board, or understand all the formalities of being a Trustee. We can offer you a full induction, mentoring, training and expenses. In exchange you would be able to offer new ideas, a commitment of time to attend
If you are interested, or just want to find out more, then please contact our Governance Officer, Marion Riches, on governance@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
meetings, and be willing to learn more about being a Trustee and the work of Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
We would be particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has farming experience, a legal or human resources background, or is a strategic naturalist.
From our President
Patrick Barkham Natural history writer and NWT President
Like our age, spring is as much a state of mind as an objective fact. By the time you read this, spring will be surging ahead, glorious and unstoppable with successive waves and shades of blossom and the evergrowing chorus of birds in song.
But I’m writing this in the midst of winter. Despite the unendingly grey gloom, this year I’m finding spring all around me. For that, I’m indebted to Simon Barnes, one of Norfolk’s greatest writers (Streatham born, via Suffolk, but we’ll claim him as one of our own).
In Simon’s new book, Spring is the Only Season, he takes the starting point of spring as the winter solstice. Spring ends with the summer solstice. This appears generous but it makes complete sense: the lengthening days caused by the Earth’s wobble are a cue for so many plants and animals — including us — to begin spring behaviour. This is often expansive, outward-looking acts — travelling, building homes, seeking food and, as Simon reveals, all manner of procreation.
Alongside this, he jots down his own observations of the unfolding spring, from December 21 onwards, around his home on the edge of a South Norfolk marsh.
I say “jot”, but these observations are glorious, rather like the haikus he celebrates in a passage about Japanese spring.
On January 29, he notes: Two great tits singing Snowdrops under weeping willow Single gnat
And April 1 is more comedic: May blossom
Thirty-eight restless curlews, about to migrate north Green-veined white (butterfly) Brief lie in hammock
Even though it is still only mid-January as I write this, Simon has inspired me to take more notice of the — sometimes agonisingly glacial — unfolding of spring. The first snowdrops and aconites are poking forth. A great spotted woodpecker is drumming; a mistle thrush singing. Pigeons are wuh-wuhwooing, a little uncertainly, but they and the collared doves are pairing up. Light is lifting.
Spring is a time of homemaking for many animals, and it is a good time to consider how they are faring in our sapiens-shaped world. We can help with
bird boxes and bug-and-mouse-friendly piles of cuttings in our gardens. Or consider a pond — our gardening spread in this issue shows the huge nature benefit, as well as joy, this simple habitat can bring.
‘Spring is not just the nicest time of the year; it’s the closest we get to paradise.’
Spring is an easy time for us to appreciate and give thanks for our amazing planet, and the gift of life it gives us all. As Barnes writes: “Spring is not just the nicest time of the year; it’s the closest we get to paradise”.
Whether it’s a day of adventure or a lifetime of memories, Tingdene Holiday Parks invite you to create lasting moments at Caldecott Hall Country Park and Waveney River Centre
From swimming and golf to dining and scenic walks, each visit offers something new. And when you’re ready for a retreat of your own, our holiday homes provide the perfect base to explore Norfolk.
With Tingdene, it’s more than a holiday - it’s a lifestyle.
