Wild Suffolk Autumn 2019

WildSuffolk The membership magazine for Suffolk Wildlife Trust

Autumn 2019

Space for nature A WILDER FUTURE

Simon Barnes on why we must all help to reconnect the UK’s wild places

YOUR RESERVES

Where to head for a wild time this autumn

PLAN A PERFECT POND Plus other ways you can help nature feel at home

26

Welcome

A hunger for change The 2008 global recession squeezed environmental concerns to the margins of political debate as economic issues took centre stage. But over the last year, public concerns over plastics, climate change and the global loss of species have come to the fore whilst Extinction Rebellion and student strikes have made front page news. This is not just a metropolitan or London-centric debate. In MidSuffolk – a rural constituency unaccustomed to major political changes – the Green Party secured 12 councillors in the 2019 local elections.

‘All politics is local’ goes the popular saying and so is creating change. The Trust wants to help everyone do what they can for nature. Indeed, our vision is for a wilder Suffolk where everyone is doing more for nature. In June Suffolk Wildlife Trust organised Suffolk’s first Nature Summit in Ipswich. It seemed to catch the mood for action and was rapidly fullybooked. The audience of two hundred heard from local MPs, Dr Therese Coffey and Sandy Martin, from successful community environmental groups and, most powerfully, from young people – their genuine fears for the future and their passion and determination for change.

We asked people what is needed to create a wilder Suffolk and, of nearly 700 responses, 50% identified nature-friendly farming and creating nature networks. Ben McFarland (on page 26) sets out our plans for just this, including the appointment of a farm wildlife adviser to work with landowners to create and link up habitats across Suffolk. There is a hunger and energy for change – people want to make a difference. So whether you are a gardener, farmer, business, developer or active citizen – help us make Suffolk the nature-friendly county.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust Wild Suffolk is the membership magazine for Suffolk Wildlife Trust info@suffolkwildlifetrust.org Telephone 01473 890089 Address Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Brooke House, Ashbocking IP6 9JY Registered charity number 262777 Website suffolkwildlifetrust.org Facebook @suffolkwildlife Twitter @suffolkwildlife Instagram suffolkwildlifetrust Flickr.com/photos/suffolkwildlifetrust

2

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

RSPB IMAGES

Chief Executive

Get in touch Our Membership Manager, Nicola Martin is happy to help with any questions about your membership on 01473 890089.

Wild Suffolk Magazine Team Editor Matt Gaw Designer Clare Sheehan Consultant editor Sophie Stafford Consultant art editor Tina Smith Hobson Cover: Red deer stag Jon Hawkins, Surrey Hills Photography

Suffolk Wildlife Trust is one of a national network of Wildlife Trusts dedicated to safeguarding the future of wildlife for the benefit of all.

24

Contents

34

4 Your wild autumn/winter

The best of the season’s wildlife and where to enjoy it on your local patch.

10 Wild reserves

Why autumn and winter is the best time of year to visit these Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserves.

16

ADOBE STOCK

13 Wild thoughts

Melissa Harrison argues we are all nature’s guardians.

14 Making your house wildlife

friendly Every space is vital for wildlife, including your home.

16 Wild news

Local and national wildlife news.

21 News from Carlton Marshes

Help us take another step towards our wild vision for Carlton.

22 A river runs through it

Why the Blyth is at the heart of a new Trust project.

24 The songlines of migrants

Tracing the journey of Suffolk’s autumn and winter visitors.

26 Our vision for a Wilder Suffolk How the Trust wants to put nature at the heart of how we live.

JOHN FERGUSON

ALAMY

32 Gardening for wildlife

Looking to bring wildlife to your garden?

Just add water.

34 More space for nature

Simon Barnes on how wildlife needs protecting and connecting.

6 ways to get involved with Suffolk Wildlife Trust Volunteer Could you donate your

What's On Browse our

Shop Our online shop and

Donate to Carlton Help

Wildlife groups Join one

Leave a legacy After a lifetime’s

skills and time to look after wildlife? A wide range of indoor and outdoor tasks need doing suffolkwildlifetrust.org/volunteer

us raise £75,000 for the new trails and viewpoints at Carlton Marshes. suffolkwildlifetrust.org/new-trails

comprehensive county-wide events listing, for Tots to Teens and adults. suffolkwildlifetrust.org/events

of our network of local groups and help make a difference to nature where you live. suffolkwildlifetrust.org/wildlifegroups

Lackford Lakes centre stock a wide range of nature-related items and gifts. suffolkwildlifetrust.org/shop

pleasure from nature, please help ensure its future by leaving us a gift in your Will. suffolkwildlifetrust.org/will Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

3

Your wild autumn DAVID TIPLIN G

The best of the season’s wildlife and where to enjoy it in Suffolk

By grouping together, starlings have safety in numbers. Predators such as sparrowhawks and peregrine falcons can find it hard to target a single bird as they gather in hypnotising flocks.

Large roosts also offer warmth and a chance to communicate.

4

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

T h a n k y ou

Thanks to your m embership, we are working ha rd to make sure spectacles lik e starling murmurations rem ain part our everyday, lived ex periences of the natural wo rld.

AUTUMN SPECTACLE

Nature’s very own stunt pilots During the late autumn and the winter months, large numbers of starlings arrive in Britain from the continent, seeking out the relative warmth of our island climate. And, as dusk arrives, the starlings set off for their communal roost in what is surely one of the UK’s most staggering natural spectacles. Flocks arrive from all directions, to form a murmuration of tens, sometimes even hundreds, of thousands of birds above the roost site. As the numbers grow, the murmuration contracts and expands, swirling back and forth like iron filings drawn by a magnet, creating more complex patterns that are both beautiful and a means of escaping airborne predators. Then, as the dark rises, the birds fall, funnelling down into the reeds with one last whoosh of wings.

MARKUS VARESVUO NATUREPL.COM

SEE THEM THIS AUTUMN AND WINTER Lackford Lakes Starlings are regularly seen murmurating in the reedbeds closest to the visitor centre (you can even have coffee and watch). Look out too for the sparrowhawks that often try and crash the party.

Hen Reedbeds Last winter was an excellent year for murmurations at this site near Southwold. Make sure to wrap up warm.

Redgrave & Lopham Fen Head onto the fen before sunset for the best views. Even if the starlings don’t put on a show, a barn owl almost certainly will.

Reserve info & maps suffolkwildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

5

YOUR WILD AUTUMN

Get shortie The short-eared owl, or ‘shortie’, is an unusual owl because it prefers to be out and about in the daytime.

Look out for birds in winter months flying low over heaths and marsh, where they feed on field voles and small birds. Short-eared owl are mottled yellowy-brown above, paler underneath and has dark circles around its piercing yellow eyes. Short ‘ear tufts’ provide its common name.

SEE THEM THIS AUTUMN & WINTER Carlton Marshes This reserve is becoming known as the Suffolk site for shorties.

Dingle Marshes If you’re lucky you might spot a wintering short-eared owl hunting across this open landscape.

There is something incredibly special about being caught in a short-eared owl’s gaze.

Autumn and winter can create perfect conditions to track otters.

URBAN FIELDCRAFT

Otter movements laid bare

ADOBE STOCK

Otters are now present on every waterway in Suffolk, living in both rural and urban areas. Yet despite being widespread, seeing an otter is still a bit of a challenge. In fact, seeing the signs of otters is far easier than seeing the animals themselves.

In autumn and winter, when vegetation dies back, it’s possible to see the slides otters use on the river banks – a slipway that transforms them from humpbacked runner to liquid muscle. Look out for their five-toed footprints too.

6

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

How to

SPOT AN OTTER Sniff it Otters leave spraint

(droppings) in prominent places, such as fallen trees, weirs, bridges and twists of grass as ‘scented messages’, helping them to find mates and defend territories. They contain visible fish bones, scales and when fresh have a smell, reminiscent of jasmine tea!

Get up early These elusive nocturnal hunters are most active at dusk and dawn. If you have found field signs at a location, set your alarm and get up with an otter.

SEE THIS

Look out for fallen oak knopper galls, which are formed when a wasp lays its eggs on freshly pollinated flowers of the pendunculate oak.

DO THIS

There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. Explore one of the Trust’s beautiful woodlands in the rain.

SPECIES SPOTLIGHT

Deer

ALAMY

3 SPECIES TO SPOT

FUR AND FURY The red deer takes its name from its distinctive rusty coat.

RED MIST Stags can lock antlers to gain control of a harem.

The power of herd sight The heaths around the Suffolk coast are home to the largest population of red deer outside of Scotland – and it is in autumn when their herds swell ready for the rut. For most of the year males and females stay in separate groups, but come October the does are joined by young males and larger stags. A stag bellows to achieve dominance over a harem of females, but sometimes he needs to walk-the-walk as well as talking-the-talk. Similar-sized males can fight for the right to mate by locking antlers in dramatic, violent dusk and dawn fights.

BELLOW HEAD Red deer are often heard before they’re seen as they bellow to establish dominance.

spots, they can vary considerably.

The medium-sized roe deer has SLOTS short spiky antlers in the buck Deer hoof and a white rump patch. The prints show reddish-brown muntjac is the characteristic smaller and usually alone or in slot and sometimes twos. They have short, singlethe fetlock. spiked antlers and males have Cleave small, tusk-like canines. Chinese water deer do not have antlers, but have large, rounded “teddy bear” ears. The best time to spot any deer is during dawn or What to look for dusk.

Only two deer species, the red and roe deer are indigenous to the UK, but fallow, muntjac SEE THEM THIS AUTUMN & WINTER and Chinese water deer are also established Captain’s Wood Large herds of fallow deer in Suffolk. Deer can be distinguished by their roam this beautiful ancient woodland near overall size, the shape and colour of their Woodbridge. rump patches and by the shape and form of Carlton Marshes Look out over the reeds their antlers. Deer prints, known as slots, can for a chance to see the Chinese water deer – a also be a good species indicator. barrel-chested, teddybear with tusks!

Suffolk coast The heaths and woodlands Know the difference! around Dunwich are some of the best places Red deer are the largest species with a to watch the red deer rut. Remember to keep uniform, dark reddish brown coat and your distance. branched antlers. Fallow have palmate (broad Reserve info & maps and flattened) antlers and, although their suffolkwildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves coats are generally reddish fawn with white

Fallow deer Slots appear long and narrow and are about 4050mm wide. (Remember they often move as a herd).

Roe deer The slots of roe deer look like an inverted (and broken!) heart. They are 30mm wide.

Muntjac Muntjac have the daintiest slots, measuring 20mm across. One of the slots (a cleave) can appear longer.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

ALAMY

ALAMY

Autumn and winter are excellent times to see deer, whether it is the high drama of the breeding season or the quiet beauty of their movements through the landscape.

Top tips

7

HEAR THIS

The plaintive warbling call of a curlew over inter-tidal mudflats captures both coast and season. Look out for them from the hide at Hazlewood Marshes.

FORAGE FOR THIS

Forget the blackberry, the beech seed is the raw, edible treat that won’t stain everything it touches. Scrape off the outer brown skin to reveal the triangular seed.

NOT JUST FOR KIDS

Seven ways to enjoy nature this autumn Why should kids have all the fun? Feed your love of nature with these really wild things to do.

BILL STEVENSON

1

FIND THE PIED PIPERS Pied wagtails form amazing winter roosts that can often be found in the most unexpected places. Look out for gatherings of hundreds of these small, beautiful birds in trees in supermarket car parks! One fantastic roost can found outside the Nutshell pub in the centre of Bury St Edmunds.

2

DAVID TIPLING

DIG A POND Autumn is the perfect time to get started on a pond, allowing it to fill naturally with rainwater. No other garden feature will support as much wildlife. (See page 32 for more details).

3

JOHN FERGUSON

COOK OUTSIDE Summer BBQs are for amateurs!

Wrap up warm and stoke an open fire - perfect for everything from baked potatoes to marshmallows.

8

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

5

GO ON A NIGHTWALK With the arrival of longer nights, it is the perfect time to explore the nocturnal world. Head out on a clear night for a spot of star bathing, or watch the full moon rise and fall on the Suffolk coast.

NATTERER'S BAT: TWT

BECOME A LEARNING TEAM VOLUNTEER Time in the wild, fresh air and young children's enthusiasm for nature – it’s hard not to have a great time! You don’t have to have a teaching qualification, just a desire to pass on your love of nature to the next generation – and be willing to work outside in all weathers.

For more information about volunteering suffolkwildlifetrust.org/ volunteer

JOHN FERGUSON

4

YOUR WILD AUTUMN

10 autumn & winter events

6

WATCH MARSH HARRIERS ROOST Head to Hen Reedbeds to watch marsh harriers gather in good numbers for their winter roost.

Take your pick from this selection of some of the best seasonal activities and events close to you.

ALAMY

1 Apple day 6th Oct 12noon-4pm Foxburrow Farm, Melton Orchard walks, apple tasting & juicing, crafts for sale, live music & refreshments.

7

MAKE OR FILL UP YOUR FEEDERS As the temperature drops birds need more energy to keep going. Give them a helping hand by ensuring your feeders and fat balls are present and correct.

For more information about bird feeding see suffolkwildlifetrust.org/ feedingbirds

N at u re cra ft

YOU WILL NEED Bird seed Cooked rice Grated cheese Dried fruit Breadcrumbs Chopped nuts Lard or dripping Fir cone, coconut shell or yoghurt pot String

Hang your feeder where you can watch birds without disturging them.

MAKE YOUR BIRD FEEDER

1 Mix all the dry indredients together in a bowl.

2 Add the fat and give it a good mix around.

3 Choose your feeder.

.

Plaster all over a fir cone.

Put it round the inside of a coconut shell.

2 Suffolk otters film & talk 8th Oct 7.30pm Leiston United Church With Meg Amsden and Nicky Rowbottom, Suffolk Otter Group.

6 Deer sculpture trail 21-25 Oct 10am-5pm Bradfield Woods Sculptures and art through the autumnal wood.

7 The big hoot hunt 25 Oct 6.30pm-8pm Christchurch Park After dark family adventure in search of tawny owl hoots and other urban wildlife.

3 Apple day & autumn plant sale 13 Oct 10.30am-3pm Redgrave & Lopham Fen Apple ID, plants, free family games & refreshments.

8 Firework-free family fun night 3 Nov 7pm-9pm Redgrave & Lopham Fen Join us for campfire cooking and an evening walk in torchlight.

4 Naturewatch camera 13 Oct 10.30am-12.30pm Lackford Lakes Family course to make a Naturewatch camera for your garden.

9 Glow worms 27 Nov 7.30pm Stowupland Village Hall Talk about the glimmering world of glow worms and where to find them.

5 Six week art class 14 Oct 6.30pm-8pm Carlton Marshes Observational beginner’s art class for adults with artist Ruth Wharrier, using subjects from nature.

10 Winter solstice celebrations 22 Dec 4pm-6pm Holywells Park Family celebration of the winter solstice with a lantern lit walk.

Browse more events or book on our website suffolkwildlifetrust.org/events

Press into a yoghurt pot.

4 Hang your feeders with string (you may need

to make holes and tie the string in before adding the mix).

You can hang the feeder upside down like a bell or turn it out like a cake.

Get out and about this autumn and winter.

ADOBE STOCK

ILLUSTRATIONS: CORINNE WELCH

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

9

Discover wild Dingle Marsh Stretching along the Suffolk coast between Dunwich and Walberswick, Dingle Marshes is a place of breathtaking diversity and wildness. A visit in autumn and winter, when your footsteps are drowned out by the shingle pulse of the roaring sea, is an experience not quickly forgotten.

10

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

There is something spine-tinglingly special about walking through Dingle Marshes during the winter months.

Within its 650 acres of coastal and freshwater habitats – forest, heath, reedbed, pools and sea – a sense of a wild landscape that is unparalleled in Suffolk.

The reserve, which is run through a unique partnership involving Suffolk Wildlife Trust, RSPB and Natural England, is, like all living things, a place of dynamism and change. Located a short distance from Dunwich, a place famous for being more of the sea than land, the wave-buffed shingle banks at Dingle that mark the site’s seaward boundary have been breached multiple times.

In 2013, a storm surge saw torrents of saltwater rip the ridge, overwhelming freshwater lagoons and at its peak lapping into Dunwich Forest at the back of the marshes. This time the waves also healed, pushing shingle back into the holes it had made, leaving Dingle as a

largely freshwater reserve once more.

Yet with the prospect of rising sealevels and more extreme weather as a consequence of climate change, it is only a matter of time before the balance

This is a place of dynamism and change tips and Dingle Marshes will become a mostly saline reserve with occasional periods when it reverts back to a more fresh-water system. The eco-system will obviously change too.

While species like the bittern, an exclusively freshwater bird, will be forced out, others will benefit. Avocet,

Greenshank can be seen in good numbers at Dingle.

OUR BEST AUTUMN & WINTER RESERVES

Thanks to your su pport, we can look after Dingle Marshes for all th e migratory and resid ent birds that depend on it.

starlet sea anenomes will thrive in the increasingly saline lagoons.

The wildlife spectacles that make Dingle such a special reserve to visit in autumn and winter are thankfully, unlikely to change. Wading birds, such as greenshank with their dark grey back, white underparts and long green legs,

es

STEVE AYLWARD

There is a sense of a wild landscape that is unparalleled in Suffolk

From marsh harrier and waders to red deer, you can find your wildside at Dingle Marshes.

which can often be seen feeding on the reserve – stooped and sweeping their upward-curving bill from side to side – will no doubt remain and in all likelihood increase. Redshank, whose food sources range from worms to molluscs and crustaceans, will also make the most of the opportunities. Their peep-peep-peep lorry-reversing song of the marsh will continue. Freshwater invertebrates may disappear but the vulnerable and tiny

DID YOU KNOW While some say

the bells of drowned Dunwich can still be heard coming from beneath the waves, the “dark heart of Dunwich” is also said to be occasionally washed up on the constantly shifting shingle. Legend has it that a local maiden cut out her heart and tossed it into the sea after being spurned by her lover. The heart brings misfortune to those who touch it, so be careful if you’re beachcombing!

which give them their name and grey plovers, with their asthmatic whistle can all be seen in good numbers. Ducks, including wigeon and teal are common and look out too for flocks of linnets, twites and sometimes even snow buntings, which visit the saltmarsh and tidal pools in search of seeds. A visit at sunset can also be rewarding (as well as bracing). Along with large, chattering flocks of starling, both marsh harrier and occasionally hen harrier can be seen heading towards roosting sites in the reeds.

One of the best ways to experience Dingle is to walk a four-mile circuit that takes in the reserve’s shingle ridge, lagoons as well as the Exmoor pony-grazed heathland before dipping inside a section of Dunwich Forest. Even here, beneath the mixed canopy, it is possible to get good views over the marshes, and see gaggles of wintering geese grazing. A small hide, which overlooks the reedbed, can also be reached along a track within the forest. If you’re still, quiet and extremely lucky you may also see red deer picking their way through the trees.

ADOBE STOCK

PLAN YOUR VISIT

1

Dingle Marshes

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO Location: Dingle Marshes, Beach Road, Dunwich, Southwold, Suffolk IP17 3DZ. Map overleaf.

How to get there: Located in Dunwich, there is ample free parking at the beach.

Opening times: Free entry all year round, dawn to dusk.

Access: The shingle beach section is difficult to access for those with wheelchairs or poor mobility. Views over the reserve can be gained from Dunwich Forest nearby.

Phone for information: 01473 890089 Email: info@suffolkwildlifetrust.org Website: suffolkwildlifetrust.org TOP WILDLIFE TO SPOT Avocet: Look out for the iconic avocet swinging their long, curved bills to and fro as they feed at Dingle’s pools.

Marsh harrier: The sight of marsh harriers in flight, their wings held in a trembling v, is almost guaranteed. Look out for them heading to roost if visiting Dingle at dusk.

Marsh harrier soar over the shingle and reed.

Snow bunting: If you’re lucky, snow buntings (pictured left) can be seen with flocks of linnets and twites feeding on seeds at the edge of coastal pools.

THINGS TO DO Visit the Dunwich Museum to learn more about the history of Suffolk’s dynamic coast.

If you don’t want to walk a circuit, head straight onto the village of Walberswick where you can get refreshments and enjoy its long sand and shingle beach.

Warm your soul (and your body) with an open fire, a cup of tea or something stronger at the Dunwich Ship.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

11

ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

T h a n k y ou

OUR BEST AUTUMN & WINTER RESERVES

More Suffolk Wildlife Trust nature reserves for a great autumn day out LOWESTOFT

3

PLAN YOUR VISIT

3 1

BURY ST EDMUNDS STOWMARKET

ALDEBURGH

A143

Gunton Warren Nature Reserve

Why now?

Gunton Warren is one of Lowestoft’s ‘gems’, another fragment of wonderful wildlife habitat right on the doorstep of a town. It is a fascinating and diverse place renowned amongst the local birding community as somewhere to find rare migrants such as icterine and yellow-browed warblers, which are drawn to the shelter provided by scrubby patches of woodland.

HAVERHILL IPSWICH

2 FELIXSTOWE

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Trimley Marshes Nature Reserve

Why now?

Get ready for a winter wildlife wonderland.

Wigeon, teal, brent geese and redshank are just some of the species you can expect to see. The sight of of marsh harrier ghosting over reedbeds is almost guaranteed, with the clamour of wading birds taking flight often a first clue to their haunting presence.

Know before you go Location: Cordy’s Lane, Trimley St. Mary, Felixstowe IP11 0UD. Designated parking with a walk of around a mile to the reserve.

Open: Free entry all year, dawn to dusk.

Wildlife to spot: Bittern, marsh harrier, along with large numbers of duck, geese and wading birds.

STEVE AYLWARD

Trimley is one of the best places on the east coast to see wintering birds.

Find out more: suffolkwildlifetrust.org/ trimleymarshes The lowdown The skeletal outlines of Felixstowe’s cranes may cast a shadow over the skyline but fail to compete with breathtaking views of the Orwell estuary and the wildlife spectacle that breathes life into this wet landscape.

The reserve’s richness is perhaps even more remarkable given that the site started out as a blank canvas in 1990. Intended to mitigate for the loss of the internationally important Fagbury Mudflats, a mix of wetland features were sculpted out of the former farmland in what became a major engineering project.

Rare species can be found at this secret spot.

The lowdown As the only remaining section of the coast that retains a full suite of coastal habitats from mobile shingle, sand dunes and vegetated cliff slope, to lowland heath, Gunton Warren is unique in Suffolk. The fact that it has survived along one of the most heavily developed and modified parts of the coast at Lowestoft is even more extraordinary, but then Lowestoft itself is exceptional, trapped between the North Sea and the Broads.

Info & maps for all reserves suffolkwildlifetrust.org/naturereserves

12

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

STEVE AYLWARD

2

Know before you go Location: Gunton Warren, Links Road, Lowestoft NR32 4PQ. Open: Free entry all year, dawn to dusk.

Wildlife to spot: seals, terns, gulls and rare, unexpected winter migrants.

Find out more: suffolkwildlifetrust.org/ guntonwarren

WILD THOUGHTS

Melissa Harrison

ILLUSTRATION: JADE THEY

We’re all nature’s guardians How did you first learn to look after nature? Moving to a flat with a garden did it for me. Not only was it the first bit of habitat I felt responsible for, but it also meant that I could get a dog. Going out on twice-daily walks in all weathers, year after year, broadened my sense of custodianship to take in two urban parks and a common near my house; so as well as feeding my garden birds, planting pots up with nectar-rich species and fitting nestboxes, I found myself discovering which of my local parks’ nettle patches always had the most small tortoiseshell caterpillars, where on the common the fox den was, and which hollow trees were hibernacula for bats. Before long, I found that if any of those green spaces had been threatened with development, I would have fought for them tooth and nail; not for the theoretical ‘ecosystem services’ they provided, but because I loved them and knew them, every inch.

Cultivating a localised sense of custodianship could prove key to preserving and connecting our threatened natural environment – and going by the way people have spoken up for nature recently, from protesting against anti-bird nets to protecting wildflower verges from being mown, I think it’s already happening, right across the UK. We all have a ‘home patch’ we care about, whether it’s a single street tree, a garden, park, village green or other open space. Getting to know what happens

in it year-in, year-out not only grounds A LITTLE BIT WILD us in nature and the seasons in a way Let them grow that’s proven to have deep physical and Nettles are an important psychological benefits, but also makes food source for many us more likely to step in and act when moths and butterflies, it’s threatened: when builders block and they make great off the eaves of our local supermarket fertiliser. Leave a patch so returning swallows can’t nest, or an to grow, if you can, avenue of much-loved trees is in danger then harvest it for of being felled. compost just before It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the it sets seed. scale of the issues we’re dealing with, and helpless in the face of structures so large as to seem unassailable. But caring for a home patch is a win-win thing: not only can you achieve tangible results that benefit nature, but the sense of connection and fulfilment you can derive from protecting local habitats so they remain rich in life is huge.

Imagine if, instead of waiting for someone or Melissa something else to turn things around, we did it Harrison is a ourselves: an army of parents and park runners, nature writer nature fans and dog-walkers looking after our and novelist, nearby ponds and hedgerows, verges and bramble and editor of thickets and scrappy little woods. We’ve been the anthologies taught to think that if we don’t own Spring, Summer, the land, we don’t own the problem.

Autumn and But a world rich in wildlife is everyone’s Winter, produced right – and everyone’s responsibility, in support of The too.

Wildlife Trusts.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

13

At home with nature We put a lot of effort into making our gardens wilder, and rightly so. But what about our houses and flats themselves?

In a world where the wild places are shrinking, every inch of space we can make for nature is vital.

Whether it’s the joyful song of a robin drifting through an open window, or the colourful flash of a peacock butterfly just beyond the glass, it’s always a delight to glimpse the wild world just beyond our walls.

But our wildlife is in trouble. Natural habitats are shrinking, becoming fragmented and isolated by roads and other developments. With every tree that is lost, there are fewer natural cavities in which bats and birds can roost and nest. Nature no longer has the space it needs to thrive.

Nature reserves are invaluable, but to keep these protected areas from becoming wild oases in an impoverished landscape, we need to use every single space to help wildlife. Our gardens, streets, road verges and even houses can become part of a wild network, creating vital green corridors and stepping stones that connect larger wild spaces.

Every home, new or old, can play a part. The UK Wildlife Trusts have a vision for future housing and work with some developers to make new builds as green as possible, with built-in features that complement the habitats around them. But existing homes can do their bit, too. With just a few mostly inexpensive adjustments, we can make our roofs, walls and even windows a little more wildlife-friendly.

From bee bricks and bat and bird boxes that provide safe roosting and nesting spots, to walls blooming with climbing plants, there are lots of great ways to turn the outside of your house into a wildlife sanctuary. The best results will come when they complement the surrounding landscape, so take a look at the habitats around your house and choose the best features for your location – bats are more likely to use a roost close to a hedgerow or line of trees, and birds need to be able to find enough food to feed their hungry chicks.

Together, our homes and gardens take up more space than all of the UK’s nature reserves put together. So let’s make every inch count!

Visit our UK website for handy guides to helping wildlife, from building bat boxes to attracting bees wildlifetrusts.org/actions 14

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

Window-mounted feeders Even with no garden you can still feed the birds. A window-mounted feeder gives them a helping hand and lets you enjoy their antics from your armchair.

House martin nest cups Invite house martins to move in under your eaves with a specially made nest cup. They’re especially useful when martins can’t find enough mud to build their own.

Hanging baskets and window boxes Wildflower-filled hanging baskets and window boxes make the perfect pit stop for passing pollinators.

Hedgehog holes Hedgehogs can travel over a mile each night as they forage and look for mates.

A 13cm x 13cm hole in your fence helps keep the hedgehog highway open.

CLOSER TO NATURE

Bat boxes By fixing a bat box to your wall you can provide the perfect resting spot for your local bats. It’s important to avoid directing any artificial lighting onto the box.

Swift box Modern houses leave little space for swifts to nest, but swift boxes create a home for these summer visitors.

Broadcasting a recording of their calls encourages them to move in.

Green wall From a simple climbing plant to a trellis laden with different species, a green wall adds colour to a house, creates vital habitat and helps regulate pollution and rainfall.

Water butt Using less water helps keep our wetlands healthy, so set up a water butt to catch rainfall.

You can use the water to clean your car and water your plants.

Window stickers

ILLUSTRATION: SAM BREWSTER

Placing stickers on your windows gives birds a better chance of spotting the glass, reducing the chance of a fatal collision. You can buy them or cut out your own.

Bee box Bee boxes offer nesting space for some species of solitary bee. If you’re having work done on your house, you can even fit a built-in bee brick!

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

15

WILD NEWS

JOHN FERGUSON

Highlights from Suffolk and national news from The Wildlife Trusts

44,000 people have taken part in a learning activity with Suffolk Wildlife Trust in the past 12 months.

Dr Amy-Jane Beer addresses the Nature Summit.

BELOW: Participants made pledges to

SUFFOLK

help create a Wilder Suffolk.

This summer saw the launch of the county’s inaugural nature summit, with a wide range of talks, panel discussions and the chance to question politicians and environmentalists on issues ranging from agricultural policies to school climate strikes. High on the agenda were topics such as marine plastics, species loss and shifting baselines of what we expect from nature - the idea that, as Head of Conservation for the Trust, Ben McFarland, said ‘we have forgotten what good looks like’ when it comes to healthy and thriving ecosystems.

Among those present were Suffolk Coastal MP and Environment Minister Dr Therese Coffey, Ipswich MP Sandy Martin, Dr Amy-Jane Beer, contributor to Chris Packham’s People’s Manifesto for Wildlife and street artist ATM, who 16

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

created a water vole painting during the evening.

One of the highlights of the Trustorganised event, which took place on June 7 at Dance East in Ipswich, came when a panel of young environmentalists spoke candidly about their hopes and fears for the planet.

The CEO of The Wildlife Trusts, Stephanie Hilborne urged the audience to help secure a wilder future by adding their own voice to calls for ambitious environmental legislation and continuing to take action locally for wildlife. The evening concluded with live music and more informal talks. The Trust hopes conversations started at the Nature Summit will continue to spark ideas for action and has plans to make the event a regular occurrence.

JOH N FER GUS ON

Suffolk’s first Nature Summit

Have your say See page 19 for more information on our campaign for a Wilder Suffolk and a Wilder Britain.

NEWS

Together

we’re stronger

53

Small-spotted catshark will benefit from a new MCZ at Orford Inshore.

SUFFOLK

Protection for some of Suffolk’s seas A new tranche of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) will include an important spawning ground off the Suffolk coast.

Orford Inshore MCZ is located 14km out to sea from the Alde Ore estuary. The site consists almost entirely of a seafloor of mixed sediment, reaching between 20-30 metres in depth throughout. The seafloor here is extremely important as a nursery and spawning ground for many fish species, including Dover and lemon sole, sprat and sand eel. Skates, rays, small-spotted catsharks and several

crustacean species are also found here.

The area is also important to foraging seabirds, such as the black-legged kittiwake, northern fulmar and northern gannet.

The announcement from the Government, which follows lobbying by Suffolk Wildlife Trust and its members, is the third round of MCZ designation that has seen 91 sites protected for wildlife.

The most recent round saw 41 new zones created. The Orford Inshore MCZ is Suffolk’s first.

SUFFOLK

Smut on the naked ladies An incredibly rare fungus has been found on a Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve. A population of around 250 meadow saffron (naked ladies) were found to be infected with the smut fungus. Dr Brian Douglas of Kew’s Lost And Found Fungi Project, said the find at Martins’ Meadows represented the “most significant population of this species in Britain”.

nature reserves

With your support, each of our reserves is is an exceptional place for wildlife. As we rise to the challenge of reversing wildlife decline in Suffolk, the role of our reserves as the ‘arks’ from which wildlife can spread is more vital than ever.

Meadow saffron produces its flowers in September when the leaves have died back – hence the name naked ladies.

STE VE AYLWAR D

ALAMY

Here are some of the ways your membership has been helping to protect your local wildlife.

7

You helped bats species of bat were recorded at Arger Fen & Spouse's Vale last year.

This wonderful wooded landscape supports species such as barbastelle, serotine and brown long-eared bat.

Thank

you!

1600

volunteers dedicated 11,770 days of their time, over the last year to support our reserves, learning activities, species conservation and community-based activities. Their unstinting support makes it possible for us to keep doing more for nature in Suffolk.

£2.2million spent at Carlton Marshes over the last 12 months, buying land to extend the nature reserve.

This 1,000 acre nature reserve on the edge of Lowestoft will be a haven for wildlife and people.

The fungus infecting the leaves of the naked lady.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

17

SUFFOLK

UK HIGHLIGHTS Discover how The Wildlife Trusts are helping nature across the UK

2 3 1

1 Water Works An innovative project is testing new ways to grow food and lock in carbon in Cambridgeshire’s Great Fen. The project will use wetland farming to test new crops for food, healthcare and industry, all whilst reducing the amount of carbon lost from the soil. This was made possible by the People’s Postcode Lottery Dream Fund. wildlifebcn.org/news/water-works

Murmurating starlings

by Colin Barley Overall winner of the 2018 photography competition.

Photography Competition 2019 There’s still time to enter up to three wildlife photographs of your choice in our annual photography competition to have a chance of winning £500 and a mini-break.

Do you know someone under 12 or 18 years old? As well as seven standard categories there are two bespoke

18

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

categories to entice budding young photographers too. The closing date for entries is Monday 28 October 2019.

Free entry at suffolkphotography.org

Photography COMPETiTiON

2 Osprey anniversary The Scottish Wildlife Trust are celebrating 50 years of ospreys at the Loch of the Lowes reserve. The reserve became just the fifth known nest site when ospreys recolonised the UK after their extinction in 1916. The current pair fledged 10 chicks from 2015-2018 and returned again this year. scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/ospreys-50

3 Seal of approval A record number of grey seals have been counted at South Walney Nature Reserve. A drone survey spotted 483 seals, 123 more than the previous record. The grey seal is one of the world’s rarest seals and around 50% of the world population lives around the British Isles. cumbriawildlifetrust.org.uk/recordseals

PETER CAIRNS

Winning image in the Simply Suffolk category

by Justin Minns . .

NEWS

THE WILDLIFE TRUSTS

UK UPDATE

A changing Wind in the Willows The Wildlife Trusts have launched a new UK campaign calling for a Wilder Future and nature’s recovery on land and at sea. To kickstart the campaign and raise awareness of the plight of our wildlife, the Wildlife Trusts created a film trailer for The Wind in the Willows.

With an all-star voice cast including Stephen Fry, Alison Steadman and Sir David Attenborough, the film brings to life the modern threats facing the beloved characters from Kenneth Grahame’s children’s classic. A lot has changed on the riverbank since we first met Badger, Ratty, Mole and Toad just over a hundred years ago.

Wild places have shrunk and disappeared, threatening the wonderful wildlife they support. We’ve lost 80% of our heathlands and up to 49% of our seagrass meadows, crucial nursery grounds for fish and important stores of carbon.

Rivers are in poor condition and water voles like Ratty have become the UK’s most rapidly declining mammal, lost from 90% of the places they were once common.

Toads have found the last century tough as well, with numbers dropping by almost 70% in the last 30 years alone.

Ratty floats downriver in a scene from The Wildlife Trusts’ Wilder Future campaign trailer.

But the film’s message is ultimately one of hope: nature is currently in a bad state, but it’s not too late to change things.

Our new campaign, Wilder Future, asks people to pledge to take action for nature in whatever way they can, from simple acts like planting wildflowers for pollinators to reaching out to politicians and speaking up for our wildlife.

Stephanie Hilborne, CEO of The Wildlife Trusts, said: “We are a nation of nature-lovers, yet we live in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. If we want to put nature into recovery we have to create a mass movement of people calling for change.”

Sir David Attenborough, President Emeritus of The Wildlife Trusts and narrator of the trailer, added: “Together we can make the next chapter for wildlife a happier one. Join us to put nature into recovery.”

The trailer premiered on social media and attracted over a million views in the first few days. the country.

Watch The Wind in the Willows trailer wildlifetrusts.org/wilder-future

HOW CAN YOU HELP? n Contact politicians – to call for strong environmental laws which help nature recover, including Nature Recovery Networks that connect wild spaces. n Walk in the pawprints of others – and imagine what wildlife needs to survive in your neighbourhood.

n Help us create a Wilder Suffolk – on page 26 our Head of Conservation, Ben McFarland, sets out Suffolk Wildlife Trust's vision for the county.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

19

We bet you didn’t know...

All of Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s ponies at Knettishall Heath have names.

The oldest, Antler, is now a stately 27-years-old. Please remember not to stroke or feed the ponies though – they have a grazing job to do!

Lackford’s rabbits are the focus of a new Breckland study.

DAVID KJAER

Getting skilled up

SUFFOLK

Lackford’s role in Breckland rabbit recovery

SUFFOLK

As part of the Back from the Brink – Shifting Sands project, some plots of land at Lackford have been stripped of turf and turned into mounds to encourage rabbits to move in. If the project is succesful it is likely the method will be used in other parts of the Brecks. Early indications of “rabbit recruitment” are promising but retaining them as viable, productive warrens could still prove a challenge, especially with continuing pressure from disease.

Cranes at Redgrave & Lopham

ADOB E STOCK

Common crane are becoming a more frequent visior to Suffolk and have been seen flying over and landing on the fen.

Meanwhile, a pair of marsh harriers fledged four young this year. It is now three years since a pair became the first in living memory to successfully raise chicks at the fen. A female hen harrier was also seen roosting on the reserve, while common crane were seen both flying over and landing on the fen.

Cranes are becoming a more common sight in Suffolk.

20

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

New survey of ancient woods

Suffolk Wildlife Trust has begun a long-term project to survey ancient woodlands that are County Wildlife Sites (CWS). The scheme, commissioned and funded by Suffolk Biodiversity Information Service, has seen the discovery of rarities such as thin-spiked wood sedge and narrow buckler fern.

STEVE AYLWARD / JOHN FERGUSON

A study of rabbit activity at Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Lackford Lakes reserve will help shape an understanding of how their grazing and movements shape the landscape where they live. Regionally, rabbits have suffered dramatic declines due to myxomatosis and different strains of haemorrhagic disease.

However, rabbit populations at Lackford are still strong, allowing analysis of their impact on topography, vegetation and surface conditions.

The Trust is already the biggest outside learning provider in Suffolk and now we are helping to teach the teachers of the future. During the spring, our learning team ran Open College Network accredited Forest School groups, as well as a very successful Wild Beach Leader Course. This autumn, the Trust will be working with schools from across East Anglia to deliver Employability and Skills qualifications for children on alternative courses.

PLEASE HELP US RAISE £75,000

ADOBE STOCK / STEVE AYLWARD

NEWS FROM Carlton Marshes

Generations of children will take their first steps into nature at Carlton Marshes.

Stepping out A bigger landscape for wildlife After the tremendous news, last spring, of the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s comittment to our vision for 1,000 acres of wildness, the transformation of Carlton Marshes is underway.

It’s an intriguing sight, enormous diggers and dumpers trundling across the nature reserve, dwarfed by the scale

Every £1 you give will be matched by £1 of Lottery funding Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

JOHN FERGUSON

Thank you

of the wetter, wilder landscape they are here to create. In all, 380 acres of marsh, reed and pools, knitted together by 9 miles of sparkling Broadland dykes.

It’s fair to say that everything at Carlton Marshes is bigger than the Trust has done before… the land purchase, the habitat creation, the new visitor centre, even the network of paths.

routes will be natural tracks, our ambitious plans include 2 miles of all-weather paths and boardwalk. As well as being wheelchair and pushchair friendly, these new paths will offer a firm, even surface for all visitors, especially in winter when the rafts of winter duck and waders will be spectacular.

New trails to enjoy The new reserve will offer a network of over 8 miles of paths, including 4 circular routes from just ½ mile to 3½ miles, with links beyond the reserve boundary into longer walks along the Waveney Valley or via the foot ferry into Norfolk.

Since we began fundraising for Carlton Marshes in 2016, the unstinting generosity of members and supporters has been remarkable. Please can we ask for your help once more?

£18 £36 £108 £220 £360

How you can help Our goal now is to raise £75,000, towards the paths and viewpoints, so everyone can enjoy the opportunities to get close to the wildlife that the new habitats will attract. Whilst some of the more remote

What your donation will do

½ metre of wheelchair accessible, all-weather path 1 metre of path or an oak plank for the boardwalk 3 metres of path 1 metre of boardwalk 10 metres of path

HOW TO DONATE suffolkwildlifetrust.org/new-trails 01473 890089 Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Brooke House, The Green, Ashbocking, Ipswich IP6 9JY.

Thanks to the Lottery grant, your gift will go twice as far.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

21

RIVER runs through it

A

T

Water is the life of the land. A new partnership between Suffolk Wildlife Trust and the Environment Agency will see the restoration of one of the county’s most beautiful rivers.

BY MATT GAW

owards its mouth near Southwold, there is a gentleness to the River Blyth; a soft coming together of water and moussey mud. It is a landscape of creeping tides, an archipelago of salt-crusted land and briney, winding creeks. In fact the river’s name is rooted in the Old English “blithe”, meaning gentle or pleasant.

But the River Blyth is not just the wellknown and much-loved estuary. From its outpouring into the North Sea, the river can be traced back to its source near Laxfield: a journey that sees water pass through Walpole, the town of Halesworth, the estate of Heveningham Hall and swathes of arable land. Along the way tributaries, fanned out like thin blue veins on a splayed hand, join it, bolstering its flow and raising its rippling pulse.

It is here, further inland, that something of the gentleness of the Blyth has been lost. In summer the beds of the streams which feed the Blyth run dry.

The clay bottoms are left exposed and cracked, unable to support invertebrates or other wildlife, such as water vole. But then in winter, when the rain comes, the tributaries don’t so much flow but roar; carrying silt-heavy water, which flashes from farmland at speed, to threaten towns and homes downstream.

TREES, WATER AND WILDLIFE For Suffolk Wildlife Trust, the problems faced by the River Blyth – the areas of poor water quality, the flood risks - were also an opportunity. Rivers are, as Penny Hemphill, the Trust’s Water for Wildlife Officer, tells me, “the backbone of the county.” They are our single natural 22

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

source of connectivity, a wild blue line that stitches together habitats and homes for a multitude of species. Get rivers right and the rest will follow: water-borne wildness will spread out across the land.

As a result, the Trust, in partnership with the Environment Agency, has now launched a two-year project to improve the river’s water quality and boost biodiversity. The scheme’s focus is broad, consisting of tackling issues at seven different sites across the entire catchment. Alice Wickman, the Trust’s newly recruited River Blyth Officer who is leading the project, explains work has already begun in some areas.

“One of the things we have already delivered at some sites and will continue elsewhere, is the removal of invasive Himalayan balsam and the planting of riparian trees.

The impact of having trees by a river is actually quite significant. The trees stabilise banks, reducing sedimentation, but importantly they also shade the water. This is good for fish and also reduces the amount of in-channel vegetation, which helps improve the flow of the water. Just the occasional tree can make a real difference”.

Rivers are a natural source of connectivity, a wild blue line stitching habitats together

This project is funded by a Water Environment Grant.

LEAKY LOG JAMS – If you visit Church Farm Marshes nature reserve, Black Bourn Valley or Knettishall Heath, you may have seen a log jam in action. Stretching across the width of the river, these logs replicate the effects of

GREG COYNE ALAMY, INSET STEVE AYLWARD

SLOWING THE FLOW Other projects on the Blyth and tributaries such as the Wang, Wenhaston and Chediston watercourse, will see more direct action to improve the river’s flow. The aim is not to speed it up, but to slow it down; altering it, creating the variety needed. Think heart-beat, rather than flatline. Log jams and deflectors wedged into the river will all help create a more natural, diverse flow and undo damage caused to watercourses that have been repeatedly dredged or “slubbed out” to move water downstream more quickly – a process which has effectively removed all habitat from the river’s bed, lowered water quality and increased the likelihood of flooding downstream.

While other physical techniques to prevent flooding will also be introduced, such as attenuation ponds that will hold water at times of peak flow, the River Blyth project is also about increasing awareness of good river management and offering advice to landowners. Alice says she hopes that when those living and farming in the river catchment see the benefits of the work the Trust is doing, they will also want to get involved.

HOW DO THEY WORK? fallen trees. While they are a low-tech solution, the impact they can have on a waterway is significant. While the log jam creates riffles, oxygenating water, it also slows the flow. This means that in times of heavy

rain streams are not as “flashy”, reducing flooding risks downstream. Equally, the slowing down of the water, means water flow remains more constant in times of drought.

River Blyth

EYES AND EARS OF THE RIVER “River schemes, such as these, really depend on the cooperation of the landowners getting involved. We are working to make this catchment a place that is better for wildlife and for people.

I think when some of these projects get going, other landowners, whether upstream or downstream, will help us identify other issues, just as they did during the restoration of the Little Ouse at Knettishall Heath.”

People are being involved in other ways too. For the first time in the Trust’s history, a network of voluntary local river wardens are being recruited to monitor the health of the Blyth. Alice says the wardens will be an enduring legacy from the two-year project, a way to make sure that the Blyth is gentle and pleasant for ever more.

Would you like to become a river warden and help restore the River Blyth? Volunteers are needed to help with a range of tasks from monitoring invertebrates and planting trees to pulling up balsam. Contact: alice.wickman@suffolkwildlifetrust.org Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

23

3 2

Winter Warmers As the seasons change so does our wildlife. Every year the coming of autumn and winter is marked by the migration of birds searching for a milder climate.

BY STEVE AYLWARD 1

W

ith autumn there is a changing of the guard in Suffolk. As warblers, swifts, swallows and martins head south, from the north and the east come a host of ducks, geese, thrushes and waders.

Bird migration has only been understood relatively recently.

In the 17th Century the English minister and scientist Charles Morton suggested birds migrated to the moon!

In the 17th Century the English minister and scientist Charles Morton suggested birds migrated to the moon!

Others had previously suggested that swallows, when they disappeared with the cooling of the weather, had buried 24

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

themselves deep in the mud of lakes to hibernate for the winter.

However, by the early 1800s migration was beginning to be understood, with amateur naturalists living on the east coast noticing the large number of birds flying in from the sea and rightly inferring they must have come from mainland Europe and beyond. While recovering ringed birds across the world started to fully explain migration patterns (a national ringing scheme started in 1909), modern technology in the form of satellite tracking has transformed our understanding of migrating birds and the challenges they face.

Here we highlight a few of our most notable migrant winter visitors and where best to see them, while also reflecting on the incredible travels of ‘Carlton’ the cuckoo.

SOME OF OUR MOS

Follow Carlton's travels bto.org/our-science/ projects/cuckoo-tracking/ carlton_ii ADRIAN DAVIES NATUREPL.COM

6

WINTER MIGRATION

4 2 Short-eared owl

Short-eared owls typically arrive in Suffolk in the late autumn having bred in Scandinavia. As one of the most active owls during daylight hours they rival the barn owl for attention during the short winter days. These stunning owls, with their piercing orange eyes and feathery “ear” tufts, tend to fly low: quartering fields and marshes looking for small mammal prey.

BEST PLACES Carlton & Oulton Marshes, Dingle Marshes

5

3 Black-tailed godwit

These, tall, elegant waders descend on the Suffolk coast in autumn having flown in from their Icelandic breeding grounds. Driven to extinction as a breeding bird in Suffolk in the 19th century due to hunting (it was once a popular dish) these birds once again grace our estuaries in winter. Flocks of many hundreds of birds are not uncommon.

BEST PLACES Hen Reedbeds (Blyth Estuary), Hazlewood Marshes, Alde Mudflats, Trimley Marshes

4 Redwing

A member of the thrush family, redwings start to arrive in October to take advantage of the abundant hedgerow berries and fallen fruit in orchards. They breed in Scandinavia and Russia and up to 1 million birds spend the winter in the UK. Once the berries and fruit have been eaten, the birds move into the fields in search of earthworms.

BEST PLACES Black Bourn Valley, Arger Fen & Spouse's Vale, Martins' Meadows

T NOTABLE MIGRANTS 1 Carlton the cuckoo

While the song of the cuckoo is very much a sign and sound of spring, information gathered from some of the birds tagged by the British Trust for Ornithology offer a fascinating window on migration. Carlton, as his name suggests, was caught and tagged at Carlton Marshes in May last year having just arrived in the UK. After a relatively short stop in the Waveney Valley, his tracking data shows he soon headed south with stop-offs near Bordeaux in France and then northern Spain. By early August 2018 he had flown down the west coast of Africa and arrived in Senegal. It was then on to Gabon further south where he spent much of the winter before starting the return journey in March this year. Having followed a similar route back, Carlton thankfully arrived safely in Suffolk in early May 2019.

Despite being one of the last cuckoos to arrive back in the Waveney Valley, hopefully Carlton didn’t miss out on the opportunity to find a mate! By the time you read this, Carlton should be safely back in the African tropics.

5 Pochard

Male pochard are handsome and distinctive ducks that can be found in winter along the upper reaches of estuaries and inland on lakes.

While a tiny handful are local breeding birds, the vast majority fly in from Eastern Europe and the Baltic to escape the harsh winter weather.

BEST PLACES Trimley Marshes, Lackford Lakes, Mickle Mere

6 Dark-bellied brent goose

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

ALAMY, ADOBE STOCK, BILL BASTON

These birds travel a huge distance from the tundra of northern Russia where they breed, to winter on the Suffolk coast. They are drawn by the milder weather and the opportunity to feed on eel grass and algae in the shallow waters of the Stour, Orwell and Deben Estuaries. Large flocks are a spectacular sight moving between the estuaries and the adjoining marshes and fields.

BEST PLACES Trimley Marshes, Levington Lagoon 25

Our vision for a

Wilder Suffolk The natural world is in trouble, with wildlife in decline and wild spaces becoming smaller, fragmented and damaged. Suffolk Wildlife Trust has a five-year plan to stitch the county’s landscapes back together and put nature at the heart of how we live, learn and work.

GRASS SNAKE AND TOAD: MINDEN PICTURES/FLPA

BY BEN McFARLAND

26

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

A WILDER FUTURE

For too long humanity’s attitude has been to beat nature into submission, whether it is through intensive farming or tidy gardens with no place for wildlife. In Suffolk Wildlife Trust's vision for the county there is room for all creatures – great and small.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

27

THE STATE WE’RE IN I wonder what Carson and Huxley would make of the state of nature today? While Carson’s book played no small part in focussing ecological awareness and removing some very harmful chemicals from the countryside, the sad truth is that now, more than 50 years later, things are far, far worse. We stand on the brink of losing many of our once common species, from toad to nightingale, hedgehog to lapwing. The communities of invertebrates that form the foundations of our food chain are collapsing.

There are many reasons for these declines and some are very complex but much can be traced back to our own attitudes. Our approach to nature, generally speaking, is to beat it into submission: to control it, to create order. For example, tidiness pervades much of our countryside and many of our

gardens. Whether it is small, neat, almost lifeless hedges, closely cropped or even plastic lawns, tidiness has become a modern curse that has left the natural world withered and weak.

But we know this doesn’t have to be the future. At Suffolk Wildlife Trust we have been working on a vision to restore wildlife and wild places. Our aim, over the next five years is to stitch together the broken fabric of nature across Suffolk, working with others to create wilder areas: places where wildlife can thrive free from human interference and species can travel more freely across the landscape. At the centre of this vision is a drive to develop a sense of how we can care for nature and why. We know we need more people to understand the importance of nature, to allow its green shoots to force its way into their consciousness and their everyday lives – to realise that a wild Suffolk, a wild world, is ultimately better for all of us.

THINKING BEYOND NATURE RESERVES Traditionally, conservation has often focussed on nature reserves and there are many examples of how these spaces have helped safeguard some of the UK’s rarest species. Suffolk is lucky to be blessed with some amazing reserves: the Trust’s Bradfield Woods and Redgrave &

Stag beetle

Tidiness has become a modern curse that has left the natural world withered and weak Bees, such as this buff-tailed bumblebee, can do well in cities due to the variety of trees and flowers available.

Gardens help to connect flower-filled foraging areas.

28

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

ELLIOTT NEEP

M

any of us know that nature is in trouble and has been for some time.

Back in 1962, just a year after Suffolk Wildlife Trust came into being, Rachel Carson’s environmental classic Silent Spring was published. Her account of the ecological damage wreaked by the large-scale use of pesticides, such as DDT, moved the writer Aldous Huxley to comment, ‘We are losing half of the subject matter of English poetry’. His observation touches on an important truth. While nature is, of course, worth protecting in itself, with its destruction and degradation we are also losing something of ourselves. After all, the natural world touches us in so many ways.

A WILDER FUTURE

Approach already bearing fruit

Our work with wildlifefriendly landowners and farmers will help create more scrub, thicker hedges and more ponds.

LAPWING : AGAMI PHOTO AGENCY DREAMSTIME, NATUREPL.COM / ANDY HAY RSPB

Lopham Fen, the RSPB’s Minsmere, or the National Trust’s Orford Ness are just a few examples of sites that are both locally and nationally important. As a county, we can also be proud of our track record in species conservation and recovery as a direct result of hard work on nature reserves. From bittern and marsh harrier recovery in Suffolk’s coastal reedbeds to the preservation of the rare fen raft spider and fen orchid populations, Suffolk’s nature reserves have played an important role in British nature conservation.

However, to turn around the overall decline of nature in Suffolk, we need to work beyond our reserves. Whilst many species depend on nature reserves there are also many other species that are more often found in the wider countryside and within our towns and villages. Of course, we will continue to manage our nature reserves to maximise their benefit for wildlife but only by looking and working beyond our reserves can we improve the fortunes of wildlife across the county.

STEVE AYLWARD

The Trust’s focus on working with farmers and landowners to create a wilder, ecologically richer Suffolk, is already bearing fruit. Juliet Hawkins, Farm Conservation Advisor for the Trust, this year found a stonewort (a type of green algae) in a Suffolk pond, which was thought to be extinct in Britain. The slimy-fruited stonewort, discovered at a farm in the east of the county, was last recorded at a location in Cambridge in 1959. The discovery of the stonewort, which is important in On warm, damp itself, is a demonstration of theevenings pond’s in early toads migrate health – making it aspring, great habitat for back to their breeding amphibians and invertebrates. ponds. But busy roads often block traditional routes.

An estimated 20 tonnes of unlucky toads are killed on the UK’s roads every year.

A SOFTER, WILDER SUFFOLK For us to be as effective as possible we will work on a range of approaches from species specific projects to reverse the declines in certain animals and plants, to wider landscape-scale approaches, where we will extend our work with landowners and farmers.

Ultimately though, we know we must create more wild spaces: places where nature is not beaten into submission but left to do its own thing. This ‘softening’ of Suffolk will lead to a wilder Suffolk.

Over the next five years, we will build on the work of our advisers working with wildlife-friendly landowners and farmers to help create greater areas of scrub, thicker hedges, more ponds, wilder rivers and areas free from pesticides and human interference. These wilder hotspots will become important refuge areas to aid species recovery across the landscape.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

29

KEY SPECIES The Trust will, at the same time, focus our efforts on a number of key species across Suffolk. These species have been carefully selected, not only because they are declining, but also because they are well-known and can inspire more people to take action, to join us and help us on the journey to a healthier natural world.

Importantly, the species also represent particular habitats and in so doing can be seen as indicators of the overall health of the county’s wildlife. To put it more simply, we know if can get it right for amphibians, for water voles, for nightingales, lapwings, hedgehogs, stag beetles and swifts, we will also be getting it right for many other species that depend on the same habitats.

Amphibians Frogs, toads and newts are all declining in Britain. The population of toads alone has fallen by 68% in thirty years across the country. The reasons are complex, but a lot has to do with fragmentation of habitat, over shading and the direct loss of farmland ponds.

We will work with landowners to create and restore lots of ponds for breeding, we will create rough areas for hibernation and we will work with landowners to create habitats to link ponds together.

By doing this we will help improve connectivity across the landscape and increase resilience to the damaging effects of climate change.

Old Broom nature reserve.

STEVE AYLWARD

JOHN FERGUSON

A WILDER SUFFOLK AND A WILDER YOU We believe our work over the next five years will have a profound effect on the county and will help restore wildlife to many parts of Suffolk. But our vision is not just for wildlife and wild places but also for people.

For our plan to work, we need people to help us and to join us on this journey. Afterall, we want to re-wild the child and the adult as much as the land.

If we can do this, we will all be better off as a result.

Some of our

We believe our work over the next five years will have a profound effect on the county and will help restore wildlife to many parts of Suffolk

30

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

Young Wardens at Lackford Lakes.

ILLUSTRATIONS: BILL STEVENSON

A WILDER FUTURE

key species Water vole

Lapwing

As our fastest declining mammal, there is a real risk of losing water vole in Suffolk and perhaps across Britain. This charismatic species has been a victim of years of damaging engineering works to our rivers, as well as predation by the nonnative American mink.

We will work with farmers and partners such as the Environment Agency to improve habitats and conditions for their survival along Suffolk’s major rivers.

The river restoration schemes we will develop will include creating more natural sections of river and so will also benefit a wide range of other species, such as fish and dragonflies.

Many of our wading birds are declining and lapwing are of a real concern in Suffolk. There has been a long and gradual decline to the point now that they only occur in any numbers on nature reserves and where landowners work hard to create ideal conditions for them.

We will work with other conservation organisations as well as landowners to create the open spaces and wet land that lapwing and other waders need to feed and breed.

Nightingale The loss of the beautiful song of the nightingale from much of our countryside is not only desperately sad, but also reflective of the loss of ‘messy’ but more complex habitat, that supports many other species too. Nightingale like thick, tall scrub which is being lost from across Suffolk at an alarming rate.

We will work with landowners encouraging them to create rough and wild areas, free from human interference, which will help nightingale to nest and find food. These pockets of wildness will also be critical for many other species of declining birds, such as turtle dove as well as providing a vital refuge for insects.

Hedgehog, swift and stag beetle Much of our wildlife relies on our towns for survival and none more so than these three species.

We will build on our work in Ipswich with hedgehogs and use this experience to work in other towns. Through our work, we will help gardens to be more hedgehog friendly, improve nesting opportunities for swifts and create habitats such as log piles, for stag beetles. By doing this, we hope not only to help hedgehogs, swifts and stag beetles, but also to immerse and inspire many more people in nature and to develop a love of the natural world wherever people live.

We need more people to understand the importance of nature – to realise that a wild Suffolk, a wild world, is better for all of us Our vision hinges on everyone playing their part in creating a Wilder Suffolk. As a member of Suffolk Wildlife Trust you are already doing your bit, but there’s lots more we all can do to boost the fortunes of the county’s wildlife.

Ben McFarland is Head of Conservation for Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

See p14 for ideas on how to rewild your home and p32 for pond tips. Or visit suffolkwildlifetrust. org/volunteer to join our energetic army of volunteers.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

31

Plan your wildlife-friendly

pond for all We’re rapidly losing our ponds, rivers and streams in the UK, so adding a pond is one of the best things you can do to help wildlife in your garden. Kate Bradbury explains how to make your pond a haven for animals, large and small.

Long grass for cover Allow the grass to grow long around your pond, or grow low-growing herbaceous plants nearby, to provide cover for young frogs, toads and newts and protect them from predators such as birds.

A mix of pond plants Add a range of emergent, floating and submerged plants to provide the best habitat for wildlife, offering egg-laying habitat and shelter from predators. Submerged plants oxygenate the water, too.

Shallow water This is where the life is! Here, you’ll find tadpoles and other aquatic larvae. Shallow areas warm up more quickly in spring, and frogs lay spawn here.

Emergent plants Dragonfly nymphs climb out of the water using the stems of emergent plants before transforming into winged adults.

Landing pad Water lilies will be used by thirsty insects such as bees. Frogs may rest on them to catch insects and aquatic larvae will shelter beneath them.

32

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

Deep water In winter, deep areas provide shelter for frogs, which rest at the bottom, breathing through their skin. Toads prefer deep ponds too.

GARDENING FOR WILDLIFE A pond is one of the richest habitats you can create in a garden, providing food, water and a breeding place for a huge range of species, from amphibians to aquatic invertebrates, and birds to small mammals, such as hedgehogs and bats. A pond is also one of the busiest wildlife habitats. Digging one will have an almost immediate effect. Within just two weeks, you might attract water boatmen and pond skaters, bathing birds, thirsty hedgehogs and egg-laying insects, such as dragonflies and damselflies. Amphibians will seek out the water to spawn in spring, and bats will take advantage of the insects dancing over the water’s surface in summer.

In the wild, ponds, rivers and streams are being lost and degraded by development, drainage and intensive farming, resulting in a huge loss of wildlife.

So garden ponds are an increasingly vital habitat for species that may have lost their breeding grounds elsewhere. They can also act as stepping stones

Make piles of old terracotta pots or loose heaps of stones near your pond to provide shelter for frogs and toads.

Kate Bradbury is passionate about wildlife-friendly gardening and the author of Wildlife Gardening for Everyone and Everything in association with The Wildlife Trusts.

For more pond tips and to add your Water feature to our UK pond map, visit wildaboutgardens.org.uk

Gently sloping sides Make sure mammals such as hedgehogs can enter and exit the pond safely to avoid drowning. A sloping ‘beach’ is perfect and will attract birds to bathe here too.

ILLUSTRATION: HANNAH BAILEY, KATE BRADBURY: SARAH CUTTLE

Somewhere to hide

between larger bodies of water, providing a lifeline to species that are unable to travel long distances.

While large ponds attract the greatest number of species, don’t underestimate the value of a small pond. A container such as an old tin bath, Belfast sink or even a washing up bowl can provide a home for aquatic insects. Frogs may use the habitat too – just help them to reach the water by making a ‘frog ladder’ out of stones outside the container. Add more stones at the bottom and plants to provide oxygen and shelter for tadpoles and other aquatic larvae.

Our gardens take up more space than all of Britain’s nature reserves put together. If we all provided some form of watery home, we could create a network of wildlife-rich water highways across the country.

Nurseries for eggs Toads wrap their ribbonlike spawn around the submerged stems of plants such as marsh marigold.

Newts fold individual eggs into the leaves of plants such as water-forget-me-not.

Sheltering stones In the shallows and deeper areas of the pond, stones provide nooks and crannies for aquatic larvae to shelter from predators. Tadpoles also suck algae off them.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

33

More space for

nature Today, the UK is one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world, but it’s not too late to help our wildlife recover. Our vision for a Wilder Suffolk reflects this.

Simon Barnes finds out how the fortunes of three much-loved UK species can be transformed by protecting and connecting their wild habitat.

34

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

A WILDER FUTURE

Space for bees

If we think we can live without insects, we’re wrong: 80% of our crops, as well as fruit trees, herbs and most garden and wild flowers are pollinated by bees, wasps, beetles and flies.

It’s said that if bees died out, we would follow four years later.

RED-TAILED BUMBLEBEE, ALAMY

“Only connect!” EM Forster’s words – from his novel Howard’s End – are about human relationships, but let’s borrow them, for they say a great deal about the world we live in today. “Live no longer in fragments,” Forster added: the perfect motto for bees, toads and water voles, and just as good for our own relationship with nature. Just as more and better connections make human lives better, so we need exactly the same things to keep the wild world wild.

It’s a problem that’s been sneaking up on us for years. We can visit a nature reserve, but when it’s surrounded by houses, roads and industrialised farming, it’s an island – lovely but doomed. We have allowed the human world to take over our countryside.

But we can fight back – by joining up the good places, by softening and freeing our landscape, and by allowing wild places and wild things to connect.

Protecting pollinators We have grown rightly worried about the decline of the insects that pollinate plants. Pollinators provide every third mouthful of food we eat; without them, the countryside will die. But bees are not great travellers: they prefer to potter from flower to flower. What they need is connectivity.

So we need to make it possible for bees to travel by road. Roadside verges can be seen as long, thin nature reserves: places that allow bees to travel small distances, spread and increase. So Kent Wildlife Trust has been working with local councils to establish the right sort of conditions by encouraging wild flowers to regenerate naturally. The scheme already manages 11.5 hectares and hopes to add more sites. This involves another kind of connectivity: connecting wildlife and conservation organisations with people.

Many roadsides are managed by intensive mowing. We have somehow developed the idea that the ideal green space looks like the fairway on a golf

course: which is like saying that the ideal living room is an airport lounge. We’ve an unfortunate mania for tidiness, forgetting that we call an untidy house ‘lived-in’.

If we want a countryside that’s lived in by bees, toads, water voles and everything else, we must persuade people to accept a little roughness around the edges. So communication matters: you can’t impose conservation, it has to be carried out with the will of us all. And that again is about connecting.

There’s another crucial move: connecting the present with the future.

It’s no good making a series of lovely bee roads if you leave them to fend for themselves. Soon they will become overgrown and lose the very thing that bees love them for. There’s no point to the scheme unless it has a long-term

We need bees.

They are essential for a wild and living countryside. legacy: and that is achieved by training local volunteers to monitor and look after sections of the bee roads. After that we must look for further connections.

“Small actions can make a big difference,” says the Trust’s Rosie Earwaker. “We need people to be aware of that. What you do in your garden matters.” Kent Wildlife Trust has started awards for the best gardens for bees and for other wildlife. So they’re joining up people and bees.

Bees are part of our lives. We need them; many of our crops depend on them.

They are essential for a wild and living countryside. So we need to make a mental adjustment and see them in a different light: creatures that we must connect with, and whose connections we need to cherish and enlarge.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

35

VITAL STATISTICS

£430m The estimated value of services by pollinating insects for agriculture

80%

63%

The increase in road traffic between 1980 and 2005

The increase in area treated with pesticides between 1990 and 2016

2km

TOAD SIGN: LINDA PITKIN, TOAD: SAM HOBSON

4 in 5

Toads can travel two kilometres to reach their breeding ponds

Four out of five rivers in England and Wales fail to achieve ‘good ecological status’

1–2km

The distance most water voles travel to find food, shelter and mates

Join our UK campaign for a Wilder Future and help us put nature into recovery wildlifetrusts. org/wilder-future

36

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

WILDLIFE TRUSTS

1

Most bumblebee workers forage within one kilometre of their nest

Space for toads Live no longer in fragments, eh? A hard thing to achieve when many areas of our countryside have been split down the middle with roads. There’s a classic example in Herefordshire, where a road cuts off an area of woodland from Bodenham Lake.

And that’s not good news for toads.

They hibernate in the woods and in spring they travel down to the lake to get on with the crucial business of mating, spawning and making more toads. Toads are not swift and sure crossers of roads.

It’s ironic: Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows is the great mad driver of fiction, but in practice toads are the constant road casualties of Mr and Mrs Human.

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust has coordinated a team of lollipop people for toads: out there on spring nights with buckets and torches as toads, mad with desire, make their way to the lake. In its first year, the team helped 200 toads to the other side. Last year, the score was 1,300 – not because they’re better at catching toads but because, thanks to their efforts in previous years, there are now more toads needing to cross.

As a simple example of connectivity in action it could hardly be bettered. Toads have declined by 70% since 1985, due to a complex combination of reasons. But

On warm, damp evenings in early spring, toads migrate back to their breeding ponds. But each year, an estimated 20 tonnes of unlucky toads never make it, due to cars. saving them from being run over is a swift and effective counter-blast to the fragmentation of our countryside.

Yet it’s only the beginning. In an ideal world there would be no need for toad patrols. And so work is underway to make the landscape around the lake better for toads. Plans include making places where toads can hibernate without needing to cross the road to do so.

Creating new ponds for toads One of the problems toads suffer from is the loss of the old farm ponds. On the wooded side of the road, farmers are being encouraged to install new ponds, so that toads will be able to mate and spawn – again without crossing the road.

This helps to improve the quality of the connecting landscape.

More ponds: part of a gentler and softer landscape that joins up the best places and so brings the wider countryside back to life. It’s good for wildlife and good for humans. A wilder countryside is a better place for us all, reconnecting us with nature and making our lives richer.

A WILDER FUTURE

TOM MARSHALL

Space for water voles Ratty in The Wind in the Willows is not a rat but a water vole. He’s also a poet, a dreamer and a waterman. Here he is talking about the river: “It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! The times we’ve had together…”

You can interpret this as Ratty’s plea for connectivity: for not breaking up the system of waterways on which water voles depend. But we’ve dredged them and concreted them and polluted them and generally bullied them, until it’s a wonder they’re able to support any life at all.

Now we’re beginning to re-think, and to adjust the way we live to make for better connectivity – with greater consideration of what wildlife needs to survive.

You might expect that, in rural stretches of river at least, water voles would have it their own way. But that’s not the case.

Riverside meadow is traditionally good grazing for cows, and as they crowd onto the bank to drink or to browse the riverside vegetation, they munch away on water vole food. Worse, they trample the banks and make it impossible for voles to make the tunnels they live in.

Wherever we look, even in the heart of the countryside, it seems that we’re losing

our connection with wildlife and making it harder for wild animals to make a living.

Those cows staring at an idyllic riverside landscape while dreamily chewing the cud are making life hell for poor Ratty.

Sometimes the solution requires little more than common sense and goodwill.

Together, we can work towards a kinder and richer countryside In several areas, Essex Wildlife Trust has worked with local landowners to erect fences that protect stretches of river bank from cows, and create the perfect habitat for water voles – and the voles have returned, all along the bank.

Lock gates on rivers and canals are also problematic for water voles. But with ‘soft engineering’ solutions to the problems they create, including coir matting instead of concrete and the planting of willows, they can become water-vole friendly once again – and the connecting nature of the river can be restored.

This is not, as you will no doubt have observed, rocket science. It requires only a subtle shift in the minds of humans. We have relegated wildlife to the backwater of life, and it should be mainstream.

We have made wildlife a luxury item, the first thing we lose when we chase that will-o’-the-wisp we call progress. But as we start to live with notions of connectivity, we can work towards a kinder and richer landscape, a better countryside and a better country.

It often starts with small individual decisions – not using pesticides in your own garden, accepting that a tidy landscape is a dead landscape and letting a patch of your lawn grow wild, supporting conservation organisations such as your local Wildlife Trust, and speaking up for wildlife whenever you get the chance, over cups of coffee and pints of beer.

It’s also about our connections with wildlife and our connections with other people. We can do it. Only connect. Let’s resolve to live no longer in fragments.

Simon Barnes is an author with a passion for wildlife. He was awarded the Wildlife Trusts’ Rothschild medal in 2014.

National treasure ‘Ratty’ needs urgent help, and sensitive management of river banks, to survive.

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

37

6 places to see Water voles

WATER VOLE: TERRY WHITTAKER

W

ater voles once thrived across the UK, but as Simon Barnes makes clear (page 37) their future is in our hands. In the last 30 years they have declined by 90% due to habitat loss, pollution and predation by mink.

In Suffolk, the Trust’s survey last year of six of the county's rivers brought welcome news that water vole are now widely distributed across all six catchments, although the future remains precarious with the continued risk of predation by mink.

Water voles can be secretive, but tell-tale signs can signal their presence. Look out for burrows in the riverbank, piles of nibbled grass and latrines of small, cigar-shaped droppings. If you’re quiet, you might hear the distinctive ‘plop’ of a vole dropping into the water.

We’ve pulled together a list of some of our top places to spot them in Suffolk and further afield.

38

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

T h a n k y ou

With your suppor t, we’re helping wate r voles to recover across Suffolk.

You can find out m ore at suffolkwildlifetru st.org/ watervole-otter

Top places to spot

water voles

1 Carlton Marshes, Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

The water voles at Carlton have a whole landscape of watery habitat to choose from – with the network of dykes allowing them to roam across the reserve.

Where: Lowestoft NR33 8HU. 2 Church Farm Marshes, Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

Work to restore the river Blyth, which runs through Church Farm was actually complicated by the sheer number of water vole. Check the banks for their tic-tacshaped droppings.

Where: Halesworth IP19 9JG. 3 Knettishall Heath, Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

Water voles have returned to Knettishall Heath following a project to restore life to the Little Ouse. The river’s sandy banks are now full of voley burrows.

Where: Thetford IP22 2TQ. 4 Redgrave & Lopham Fen, Suffolk Wildlife Trust In a place where both the Little Ouse and the Waveney rivers bubble into life, water voles have established a firm footing. Listen out for their tell-tale “plop” as they disappear into the water. Where: Diss IP22 5RE. 5 Upton Broad and Marshes Norfolk Wildlife Trust A network of pristine dykes crisscrossing swathes of reedbed and fen creates the perfect home for water voles.

Where: 2.2 miles northwest of Acle NR13 6EQ. 6 Winnall Moors Nature Reserve, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust Follow the water vole trail and look for these enigmatic mammals in the clear waters of a beautiful chalk stream.

Where: Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8DX.

Did you see one?

We’d love to know how your water vole search went.

Please tweet us your best photos of a water vole from your day out @suffolkwildlife

Wild Suffolk | Autumn 2019

39

A great naturalist

D

r Eric Duffey OBE was a pioneer of were given towards the restoration of Fen modern nature conservation. He Belt, a recent extension to the Trust’s Market will forever be remembered as the Weston Fen nature reserve. The Fen supports eminent arachnologist who in 1956, one of the richest assemblages of valley fen found the fen raft spider at Redgrave & species of any of the remaining north Suffolk Lopham Fen. fens with large populations of marsh Five years after its discovery, Suffolk helleborine, butterwort and grass of Wildlife Trust was founded to safeguard Parnassus amongst the highlights.

Redgrave & Lopham Fen and it became our Fen Belt has not been managed for many first nature reserve. Eric remained a lifelong years and so has lost much of its botanical supporter of the Trust. and invertebrate interest. Over the next two In the 1980s Eric undertook years we will restore Fen Belt, spider recording at Market removing sycamore, opening up To find out how Weston Fen and in a handwritten and desilting several fen pools a gift in your Will note, described its spider fauna and re-introducing light grazing could help as ‘characteristically East by cattle.

Suffolk's wildlife, Anglian at its best. This is a rich Restoring these precious fen please contact fauna of great interest and I’ve habitats for vulnerable species Christine Luxton no doubt that there are many will be a fitting way to more species not yet recorded.’ remember Dr Duffey’s unique Eric died earlier this year, aged contribution to nature 97, and donations in his memory conservation in Britain.

01473 890089

ALEX HYDE NATUREPL.COM / STEVE AYLWARD

Eric at Redgrave & Lopha m Fen in the 1970s

remembered

suffolkwildlifetrust.org