Suffolk Wildlife September 2016

Suffolk

Wildlife News from Suffolk Wildlife Trust

SEPTEMBER 2016

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

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Living Landscapes Living Gardens Living Seas

SEPTEMBER 2016

CONTENTS

TOM MARSHALL

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7

CONSERVATION NEWS

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7

Building a memory bank

Did you grow up Wild?

A different view

Return of the spoonbill

LIVING LANDSCAPES

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Putting together a wildlife jigsaw

Steve Aylward explains how the Trust is aiming to protect the beautiful river valley at Church Farm Marshes

24 London’s new green oasis

Hackney’s Woodberry Wetlands restored after 175 years

SPECIES SPOTLIGHT

12 On the trail of Suffolk’s otters

Matt Gaw explores why the rise of the otter cannot be taken for granted

DAVID KJAER

9 WILDLIFE FOR PEOPLE

16 A career founded on a love of

nature

The experiences of the Trust of past and present interns

Richard Mabey shares his memories of Roger Deakin, a writer, broadcaster and friend

Why getting back in touch with nature makes us well

23 Farming for wildlife

The Wildlife Trusts are setting out

on a new partnership with Jordans Cereals

18 A brush with nature

GREAT DAYS OUT

26 Born to be wild

DIRECTORY

30 Great places to see bats

10 places to see these long-lived, far-flying insect hunters

32 Advertising directory

UK NEWS

22 UK’s most travelled dolphin?

Research assisted by Cornwall

Wildlife Trust reveals one lone

bottlenose dolphin’s incredible wanderlust Natterer’s bat p30

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SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

DONNA PALFREYMAN

Welcome

12 Suffolk

Wildlife News from Suffolk Wildlife Trust

September 2016

On the cover

Spoonbill Bernd Zoller Alamy SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

A favourite walk of mine goes through a network of small fields one of which, being too wet to cultivate, has reverted to rough grassland and regenerating sallow. In winter wisps of snipe rise up from wet hollows and in summer yellowhammers sing from sprawling hedges. It has nothing rare but is special for being a patch of nature in an arable landscape.

Its future was under threat this summer as it no longer fits the conditions of the Basic Payment Scheme which, through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), supports farmers and farming. The Julian Roughton scheme requires land to be in ‘good agricultural Chief Executive condition’ – brambles, scrub, ponds and hedges are not eligible. So fields that are marginal for farming – but good for wildlife – are at risk from being tidied up to avoid loss of payments and even fines from the Rural Payment Agency. And with their loss once common, everyday species become that much less common.

Conservationists have railed against the CAP for decades. In the 1970s its subsidies drove agricultural intensification with guaranteed prices for crops that ultimately led to the infamous ‘grain mountains’. And despite reforms the CAP has failed to safeguard the environment. Today populations of farmland birds such as linnet, lapwing, grey partridge, turtle dove, tree sparrow and corn bunting are at an all-time low.

Brexit raises understandable concerns about reduced environmental protection but it is also an unprecedented opportunity to make better use of the £3 billion a year that supports farming. We work with many farmers who are passionate about nature and want to make a difference. Stephen Honeywood, in our partnership with Jordans (see p23), sets 10% of the farm aside for wildlife creating networks of grassy strips, wild bird cover and pollen and nectar mixes. Hedges are managed on rotation to provide fruit and flowers for birds and invertebrates. Field margins flourish with bramble providing thick nesting cover. John Pawsey’s organic crop rotations, with clover leys and avoidance of insecticides, produces a diverse and insect-rich environment – an essential pillar to a healthy ecosystem. There are many great examples such as these that show how farming and wildlife can co-exist.

Therese Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, is Environment Minister at a time of change and opportunity. Let’s learn from the excellent examples in Suffolk, and beyond, and support farmers to restore wildlife, conserve soils, safeguard water quality, reduce flooding and enhance landscapes so creating a richer environment for future generations.

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Living Landscapes Living Gardens Living Seas

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE THE SUFFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST MAGAZINE is published by Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Brooke House, Ashbocking IP6 9JY 01473 890089 info@suffolkwildlifetrust.org www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org SWT CENTRES Bradfield Woods 01449 737996 Carlton Marshes 01502 564250 Foxburrow Farm 01394 380113 Knettishall Heath 07717 156601 Lackford Lakes 01284 728706 Redgrave & Lopham Fen 01379 688333

EDITOR Matt Gaw DESIGN & ARTWORK Clare Sheehan ADVERTISING Today Magazines, Framlingham 01728 622030 PRINTING Five Castles Press, Ipswich PATRON Lord Tollemache PRESIDENT Lord Blakenham VICE PRESIDENTS David Barker MBE, Sir Kenneth Carlisle, Lord Deben, Bernard Tickner, Peter Wilson TRUSTEES Ian Brown (Chairman), Nigel Farthing (Vice Chairman), Robin Drayton (Treasurer), James Robinson (Hon Secretary), David Alborough, John Cousins, Denise Goldsmith, Pip Goodwin, Peter Holborn, Simon Roberts

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST is one of a national network of Wildlife Trusts dedicated to safeguarding the future of wildlife for the benefit of all Suffolk Wildlife Trust is a registered charity no 262777 and a company limited by guarantee no 695346

KEEP IN TOUCH

The Trust benefits from the most incredible support, with many members’ commitment stretching over decades. Please keep in touch so we can ensure you get the most out of your membership.

We can tailor your membership to suit your family. If your children are aged betwen 6-14 they’d enjoy our Wildlife Watch magazine. Likewise do let us know if your children have grown too old for the magazine.

Sam Grange our Membership Manger would love to hear from you.

Please call on 01473 890089 Follow us on twitter and facebook

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

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CONSERVATION NEWS

Building a

MEMORY BANK

F

rom attempts to navigate rivers in barrels to beachcombing and honey collecting, your inspiring stories of childhoods spent in the Suffolk countryside have been pouring in as part of the Trust’s Growing Up Wild campaign.

By collecting and collating at least 100 people’s stories of wild times in wild places – whether it is in rolling countryside or an urban back garden – we are aiming to create a unique historical archive to share with future generations for many years to come.

Sara Holman, who is leading the Heritage Lottery Fundbacked campaign with Tracey Housley, said: “We believe these tales and images of growing up wild will clearly demonstrate how children in our county have always grown up with a largely outdoor life. They also paint a vivid picture of the lost Suffolk that the Trust is striving to restore.”

Tracey added: “We have been overwhelmed by the stories that have come in already. Touching, evocative and sometimes very funny, I’m sure Growing Up Wild will help us present a wild childhood in a new way to increase young people’s contact with the natural world.”

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YOUR STORIES

One of my earlier memories was my granddad arriving from Liverpool with a pair of very old army field glasses. He wasn’t a birdwatcher but allowed a seven-year-old to use them. I spent a long time lying in the grass watching house martins at their nests and those birds captured my heart and led to a lifelong passion for birds.

Ian Peters, Shotley Gate (64)

I used to be kicked out of the house by mum with a jam sandwich and a bottle of water. Would then spend the day exploring Bluebell Woods in Seven Cottages Lane where we would collect chestnuts, pinch apples from the gardens, happy memories.

Anne McNamee, Ipswich (65)

DID YOU GROW UP WILD? DANIEL INGOLD ALAMY

Have you got a memory of growing up outdoors in Suffolk?

Whether it’s a long story, a few lines or a photograph, we’d love to hear from you. Email info@suffolkwildlifetrust.org or write to Growing Up Wild, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Brooke House, The Green, Ashbocking, Ipswich IP6 9JY

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SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

TOM MARSHALL

Making Ipswich the most hedgehog friendly town

Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s campaign to make Ipswich the most hedgehog-friendly town in the UK can now get underway after receiving backing from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

The two year initiative, which had already been supported by a generous donation from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS), will see the recruitment of a dedicated hedgehog project officer in Ipswich to give whole communities an understanding of hedgehogs, the reasons behind their dramatic decline and how they can help conserve them.

Our new hedgehog officer will work with clusters of streets within Ipswich to create corridors of hedgehog-friendly gardens that allow hedgehogs access through fences or under gates and provide small wild corners for them to shelter in all year round.

This is not a new idea – the BHPS and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species have been promoting this through

2-3km We want to use your memories to inspire others to spend time in wild places.

Unless specified all material gathered will potentially be used by Suffolk Wildlife Trust for exhibitions, publishing, website use, social media, broadcast, newspaper articles and research.

This is how far hedgehogs can roam a night, despite their diminutive size.

They need a network of connected neighbourhoods of hazard-free and insect-rich gardens to thrive.

their highly successful ‘Hedgehog Street’ initiative for a number of years. But as well as allowing the Trust to deliver this important message in Ipswich, the HLF and BHPS funding will also enable the Trust to carry out pioneering monitoring exercises using radio-tracking and trail cameras to look at the habits of ‘hogs in the town.

Dr Simone Bullion, the Trust’s hedgehog expert said: “After running our online survey to log hedgehog sightings across Suffolk for two years we know the greatest

We can work towards making Ipswich the most hedgehog friendly town in the whole country numbers of records are associated with our towns. Ipswich in particular is remarkable for its numbers of sightings, spread throughout all areas where there are houses and gardens.

“Now, thanks to support from HLF and BHPS we can work towards making Ipswich the most hedgehog-friendly town in the whole country through active community participation, whilst also contributing to real science.”

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of HLF East of England, said: “The dramatic decline in hedgehog numbers is a genuine cause for concern, and we are delighted to be able to support this project to improve people’s understanding of how best to protect them.”

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

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CONSERVATION NEWS

A wild summer

MATTHEW ROBERTS

The bird hide at Hazlewood Marshes is open again

Suffolk Wildlife Trust helped a number of families reconnect with the natural world this summer as part of a Wild Play project supported by Dedham Vale AONB Sustainable Development Fund.

Over the summer the Trust put on six free Wild Play sessions to families at Cherry Blossom Children’s Centre in East Bergholt and three Wild Play family events at Arger Fen to enable parents and their children to play and learn together in nature.

Wild Play is designed to provide opportunities for children and adults to get back in touch with nature and to engage in playful outdoor experiences – from making mud pies to paddling in streams – with and alongside, each other.

The Trust’s Sara Holman, who devised the initiative, said: “Wild Play is free, unstructured and hands-on. No

specialist knowledge, skills, equipment or resources are required. Children have the time, space and freedom to explore wild places, make discoveries, take risks, create, build, get muddy and to experience nature at first hand.”

She added: “These sessions will be the first of many that inspire families to make nature and play part of their everyday lives.”

The new inter-tidal habitats are proving to be ever-surprising. Gone are the water rails and bittern but in their place are spoonbills and huge flocks of black-tailed godwits

FIND OUT MORE MORE  FIND OUT In the coming months, the Trust’s education team will be offering regular Wild Play and Wild Tots sessions for families at our education reserves and at local wild spaces around the county.

For more information, please contact sara.holman@suffolkwildlifetrust.org

The impact of the tidal surge has seen the dawn of a different reserve, attracting new visitors, including spoonbills

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SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

purchase and restoration of the heath.

Julian Roughton, chief executive of Suffolk Wildlife Trust, said: “Knettishall Heath is a magnificent site for wildlife which is greatly loved by local people.

Thanks to the support of HLF, WREN and Natural England we have been delighted to restore lost habitats and involve volunteers and young people in the care of this precious place.

T STEVE AYLWARD

Exmoor ponies are now free to graze across 250 acres of Knettishall Heath following the installation of four cattle grids on two public roads.

The grids enabled Suffolk Wildlife Trust to remove several kilometres of roadside fencing and take a big step towards our vision of restoring Knettishall to a landscape of open grazed heath and scattered trees – a habitat needed by so many unique Breckland species.

To mark the milestone at Knettishall Heath, William Kendall, the High Sheriff of Suffolk symbolically cut one of the last remaining fences at a special ceremony on Friday May 13 at the reserve. He was joined by representatives from the Heritage Lottery Fund and WREN who provided essential funding for the

LEFT TO RIGHT: William Kendall, High Sheriff, Peter Cox from WREN, Ian Brown, chair of Suffolk Wildlife Trust trustees, Julian Roughton, chief executive of the Trust and Phil Rothwell of HLF East of England

IMAGEBROKER ALAMY

STEVE AYLWARD

A great moment at Knettishall Heath

wo and a half years after the tidal surge event that had such a huge impact on Hazlewood Marshes, the bird hide is finally open again. The view from the hide however is quite different to that in 2013 and the birds have changed as well. Gone are the water rails and bittern but in their place are spoonbills and huge flocks of black-tailed godwits and dunlin.

There are still some familiar birds, redshank, lapwing, avocet and many species of duck but overall the reserve is a very different place. Access to the hide is now via a raised causeway, built

A different view

with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund via Touching the Tide, a Coast & Heaths AONB led project. The hide can be reached regardless of the state of the tide although visitors are reminded to be vigilant on very high spring tides when the path can be over-topped.

The recent events at Hazlewood have been fascinating. It is one of the largest unmanaged inter-tidal habitat creation projects in the UK and after the initial shock of the loss of the freshwater marshes, the new inter-tidal habitats are proving to be ever-surprising. Over the winter, there have been up to 17 spoonbills on the reserve, something that would

have been considered unimaginable just a few years ago and overall, the increase in bird numbers has been extraordinary. There is plenty of evidence of the slow process of saltmarsh creation with expanses of marsh samphire growing on the bare mud. Over time, it is hoped that more established saltmarsh communities will develop with plants such as sea lavender and sea aster becoming widespread.

Hazlewood Marshes is well worth a visit once again but to make the most of a visit, check the tide times and try to avoid high tide. ď Ž

VISIT HAZLEWOOD MARSHES Postcode: IP17 1PG Map ref: TM442582

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

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CONSERVATION NEWS

Sadly missed

MIKE RAE

Trimley Marshes breeding birds

We would like to pay tribute to Alan Favell, long-time neighbour of Mickfield Meadow, who died earlier this year. Mr Favell always took a keen interest in the meadow and cut the hay for several decades – he was in his mid-eighties when he last made hay at Mickfield just a few years ago.

Susan Stone, a Suffolk Wildlife Trust conservation advisor said: “When visiting the meadow, I often called to see Mr Favell and will greatly miss our conversations. I learnt a great deal from him about Mickfield parish, the meadow, and the art of haymaking. I feel very privileged to have known and spent time with him. The Trust’s continuing custodianship of Mickfield Meadow is a fitting memorial to his character and friendship.”

Bags of help Two Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserves have received a combined total of £20,000 from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative for restoration work and visitor improvements. The supermarket teamed up with Groundwork to launch its Bags of Help initiative, which saw grants of £12,000, £10,000 and £8,000 – all raised from the 5p bag levy – being awarded to environmental and greenspace projects.

Thank you

We are grateful to the families of the following friends of the Trust who have recently remembered us in their Will or through an In Memoriam donation.

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On a more positive note, oystercatchers have done well with five pairs nesting and young seen along with three broods of shoveler duck, two pairs of great-crested grebe and at least three little grebe nests.

If all that was not exciting enough, marsh harrier bred on the reserve for the first time ever and successfully fledged two young, an extraordinary result for a reserve that lacks an extensive area of reed – the harriers favoured breeding habitat. With some birds looking like they might have second broods, there is every chance numbers for 2016 will be higher still.

Patricia Bracey Veronica Bradford Frederick Burgess Jean Clark Jim Coles Jill Duff Gordon Dunnett Primrose Elliott

Alan Favell Mark Furnace Morris Garwood Shirley Hooton Susan Kerley Sheila Lindsey Michael Mawby John Morris

John Rogers Judith Ryland Teresa Stones Margaret Theobald David Warren Norman Warren Faith Widdicombe Lady Robina Wigan

FOXBURROW FARM

Restoration of three ponds and  replacement of an old dipping platform.

Expansion of the wildlife garden,  creating a raised vegetable area



for school children who visit the site.

Build a pergola and additional picnic benches to give visitors a place to eat and shelter.

£8k

LACKFORD LAKES

Resurface a section of the 850m  Kingfi sher trail to improve access for pushchairs, wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

Voting ran in store from 27 February until 6 March – with customers voting using a token given to them at the check-out in store.

IAN GOODALL

ROBERT CANIS FLPA

The 2016 breeding season is the second year with the benefit of the Veolia funded predator fence around the core-nesting habitat and it is already looking like the most successful year ever. Lapwing and redshank have done exceptionally well with 30 pairs holding territories and while it is difficult to confirm numbers, there is good evidence that over 20 chicks have fledged. Avocets have had a tougher time and while at least 10 pairs nested, high levels of gull predation appear to have prevented chicks fledging.

This appears to have been an issue for other avocet colonies on the Suffolk coast.

£12k

LIVING LANDSCAPES

Putting together a

WILDLIFE JIGSAW

STEVE AYLWARD

Now stretching to 138 acres of wildlife-rich habitat, the origins of Church Farm Marshes nature reserve can be traced back to a legacy gift made more than 20 years ago. Steve Aylward explains how the Trust will protect this beautiful river valley now the jigsaw is complete

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

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LIVING LANDSCAPES

S

uffolk Wildlife Trust’s Church Farm Marshes reserve sits in a pretty valley, a tributary of the River Blyth, and straddles the parishes of Thorington and Wenhaston with Mells.

The creation of a nature reserve began a number of years ago with the legacy gift of Church Farm by Philip Elsey, a keen countryman and highly respected gun dog trainer. Philip Elsey had never agriculturally improved Church Farm and his wish was that the diverse mix of marshes, fields, woodland and scrub would be protected in perpetuity. The Trust had originally been invited to survey the farm by Philip and it was immediately obvious Philip Elsey that his stewardship of the land had preserved the bulk of the wildflower-rich marshes remaining in the valley, leading to their designation as a County Wildlife Site. Over the years, the relationship with Philip grew as he never lost his enthusiasm for sharing his enjoyment of the wildlife at Church Farm. However, it came as a great surprise to learn several years later in 2004 that the entire farm had been left to the Trust. What Philip would not have realised at that time was how his initial legacy of 52 acres would be the catalyst for the creation of a nature reserve that today extends to 90 acres, and more if the adjoining Blackheath Common is counted as a part of this amazing connected landscape.

RESTORATION AND RENOVATION

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BLACKHEATH COMMON

TOM MARSHALL

When the Trust first took on the farm the decision was made to take the large arable field out of production and put it down to grass to provide additional livestock grazing. A smaller field has remained in cultivation growing a wild bird cover crop that provides a vital winter food source for small farmland birds. Other projects on the farm have included restoring the network of dykes on the marshes that support water voles, dragonflies and damselflies and creating new paths that allow visitors to explore more of the farm. The bungalow that was part of the original legacy was sold for redevelopment and this location has since become the site of one of Suffolk’s most distinctive and unique architectural buildings, the ‘Balancing Barn’ (above right).

In 2007 the Trust was presented with the first opportunity to extend the reserve. The owner of the neighbouring Marsh Farm had passed away and the family approached the Trust to offer the chance to purchase the marshes that made up a good part of the

The village of Wenhaston has long valued its three commons which have been actively managed for the best part of 30 years by the local community.

For much of this time the Trust has supported the Commons group in various ways whether it has been undertaking management tasks or providing training and support for volunteers.

For many years Suffolk

Coastal District Council had overseen the care of the common through a scheme of regulation as two of the three commons had no registered owner, but as part of their review of their countryside work, the Council felt that the local community would be better placed to oversee the commons. In 2013 a new partnership was established with the Parish Council

The gifts of land have acted as the seed for the growth of a much larger nature reserve

assuming ownership of the two ownerless commons and the Trust leading on the management of the largest common Blackheath, with the support of the commons group. This has effectively created a situation where Church Farm, Marsh Farm and Merton Wood are now managed as a single entity which benefits both wildlife and people.

STEVE AYLWARD

landholding. Like Philip Elsey, the previous owner had made no attempt to agriculturally improve the marshes as she valued them just the way they were. This was a wonderful opportunity to bring into protective ownership even more of this delightful little valley, which the Trust was able to do using funds from the sale of the bungalow. The 16 acres of marshes were subsequently purchased and incorporated into the reserve.

The next opportunity to further extend the reserve came in 2010 and in part stemmed from the fact that the Trust had acquired Marsh Farm.

The Woodland Trust owned a small recently planted woodland called Merton Wood on the edge of Wenhaston that adjoined Marsh Farm.

Following a review of their landholdings they came to the view that a small wood such as this, immediately adjoining another larger nature reserve, could be more effectively managed as a single entity rather than as two independent reserves. Therefore they offered the Trust a lease on the nine acre wood, which has since become an integral part of the reserve.

BALANCING BARN

The bungalow that was part of the original legacy was sold for redevelopment and this location has since become the site of one of Suffolk’s most distinctive and unique architectural buildings, the ‘Balancing Barn’.

Trust now owns a good stretch of both sides of the river through this part of the valley. It has long been recognised that this section of river is in especially poor condition. A combination of poor water quality and poor management of the river channel in the past, has created a river that lacks Land ownership is not the only way to diversity and conserve wildlife, but it does provide an interest. There opportunity to really make a difference is now a real opportunity A ONE-OFF CHANCE to improve the river through reprofiling the Earlier this year yet another opportunity channel to create deeper and shallower presented itself, the chance to acquire the sections that slow down and speed up flow missing piece of the jigsaw. One significant flow respectively and to reinstate meanders 13 acre strip of marsh between Church and other features that can make the river Farm and Blackheath Common remained in much better for wildlife. private ownership and it had always been The creation of Church Farm Marshes has assumed that the owner would never sell. been a familiar story in the history of the Trust, Therefore it came as quite a surprise when with gifts of land acting as the seed for the it was announced the land was being put up growth of a much larger nature reserve over for auction. This was going to be a ‘one-off’ time. Other examples include Arger Fen & chance to complete the reserve that couldn’t Spouse’s Vale that began with Spouse’s Grove be missed. A neighbour who was equally wood, Hen Reedbeds that started as the Norman concerned about the future of this piece of Gwatkin Reserve and Grove Farm which has marsh pledged generous support for the become the much bigger Black Bourn Valley acquisition and with further support from nature reserve. Of course the origin of each of a long-standing Trust benefactor, the Trust these reserves will never be forgotten and their went to the auction with a sense of just how original owners would no doubt have been important it would be to secure this piece of delighted to have known that the little bits of land. Auction sales never take long but the Suffolk that they cared so passionately suspense is huge as the seconds tick by, the about have grown, in some cases bidding goes up and slowly bidders drop by beyond all recognition, into large the wayside. It was with considerable relief tracts of land rich in wildlife. that the Trust found itself as the successful Church Farm Marshes make the buyer and able to pay the deposit, point perfectly that large is so taking one more little bit of Suffolk into much better than small.  protective ownership.

While land ownership is by no VISIT CHURCH FARM means the only way to conserve MARSHES wildlife, it does provide an opportunity to go further and really make a Postcode: difference through investing in IP19 9JG the most effective conservation Map ref: measures. This latest TM420742 acquisition means that the YELLOWHAMMER: TOM MARSHALL

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

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SPECIES SPOTLIGHT

On the trail of Suffolk’s

OTTERS After almost disappearing from Suffolk, the last decade has seen the otter return to many of the county’s waterways. As Suffolk Wildlife Trust relaunches its otter distribution survey Matt Gaw finds out why the continued success of this riparian specialist cannot be taken for granted 12 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

W

e are standing in a conga-line of wellies and waterproofs under an old brick bridge; feet submerged in water that tinkles over gravel and stone. In front of us on a narrow ledge is a mixture of footprints. Birds, rats, possibly water vole, and then…otter.

In fact, there are two sets of otter prints, an adult and, pressed lightly into the thin layer of mud around it, the shallow indentations of a cub. Close by is a spraint. Flaked with scale and fish bone it looks like a roll mop that has been dipped in an ashtray.

I look at the other members of the group. We must make an odd sight, sploshing past the droppings in turn, excitedly examining and sniffing, hoping for the musky whiff of jasmine that is said to be characteristic of otter spraint.

But then, this is no ordinary summer walk, it is a training day for a new otter survey due to be launched by Suffolk Wildlife Trust this September as part of the Water for Wildlife initiative – a unique multi-agency partnership supporting wetland conservation across the UK.

Sightings are few and far between – a half glimpse of a porpoising tail, a sense of dark eyes and water-webbed whiskers OTTER DECLINE

The signs we’ve found under the bridge are encouraging, a clear indication that otter are present on this picturesque stretch of east Suffolk river, and by the looks of it, they are doing well. Indeed, even if sightings of this charismatic yet secretive mammal are few and far between – a half glimpse of a porpoising tail, a sense of dark eyes and water-webbed whiskers – otters are now widespread in Suffolk.

Sadly, this hasn’t always been the case. The decline that almost spelled the end of the UK’s otters can be traced back to the 1950s and the development of insecticides, fungicides, organochlorides in sheep-dip, and the now notorious allpurpose wildlife killer DDT. As the poisons leached into the waterways, they slowly built up in the food chain with the largest dose delivered to the apex predator; the otter.

It took until the 1960s before organochlorides were banned in England for use in sheep dip, but they remained legal as a seed dressing until the mid-seventies. Their eventual replacements, organophosphates and synthetic pyrethroids, still proved to be extremely harmful substances and it was only in 2006 that a final ban was put in place.

BLICKWINKEL ALAMY

CLINGING ON

The cocktail of chemicals had a disastrous impact on otter numbers. Following extensive monitoring and surveying work in the late 1970s it became clear that otters were absent from most of England.

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 13

SPECIES SPOTLIGHT A study of nearly 3,000 old otter sites found evidence of otters at just 170. In Suffolk the Trust found signs of otter in the east of the county and at first it was thought they were doing relatively well.

Such optimism proved to be misplaced.

Although otters were present, they were not there in big numbers. An animal portrayed in literature and poetry as representing the very spirit of our rivers and streams was barely clinging to existence.

CONSERVATION EFFORTS

A series of conservation measures were quickly put in place to try and halt the decline. Part of the response was the creation of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust Anglian Rivers and Otters Project, an initiative that would grow into Water for Wildlife.

Working with landowners and funded by the Environment Agency, Anglian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water, the pioneering initiative helped create artificial holts and offered advice on mitigation (such as the installation of ledges under bridges to encourage otters not to cross roads) while undertaking river restoration projects to enhance river sections and promote in channel diversity. The damage caused by agricultural chemicals, the removal of bank side vegetation and other man-made changes, was slowly being unpicked.

It was against this background of restoration and habitat improvement (a process which continues to this day) that Philip Wayre’s Otter Trust carried out its own work to safeguard the future of the Eurasian otter in the UK. Between 1983 and 1995, otters bred at their headquarters on the River Waveney were released into the wild across the country, with the first three ruddering into the wild in Suffolk – several miles upstream from Black Bourn Valley, Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s newest river valley reserve.

There is still much that can be done to enhance our waterways that will benefit otter Since that time The Trust, under the Water for Wildlife banner, has continued to monitor the distribution of otters across the county, with studies in 2005 and 2010 suggesting Suffolk’s rivers had reached “carrying capacity”. In short, although due to the way otters breed and live there will never be hundreds of otters on our rivers, the indications are that our waterways are healthy ecosystems once again with otter sitting pretty at the top of the food chain.

Taken from Ted Hughes’ The Otter

Underwater eyes, an eel’s Oil of water body, neither fish nor beast is the otter: Four-legged yet water-gifted, to outfish fish; With webbed feet and long ruddering tail And a round head like an old tomcat.

BLICKWINKEL ALAMY

Brings the legend of himself From before wars or burials, in spite of hounds and vermin-poles; Does not take root like the badger.

Wanders, cries; Gallops along land he no longer belongs to; Re-enters the water by melting.

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DISAPPEARING FISH Many of the calls the Trust receive about otters is when people notice fish disappearing or being maimed in their ponds. Often this can be an otter simply making the most of an easy food supply or a mother otter using a safe location to teach her cub to learn how to hunt. They will often injure fish before they hone their skills. The best way to stop otters reaching your pond is to put up a fence – although they will find any weak spots!

STILL WORK TO DO

It is a remarkable turnaround. But as the Trust’s Wildlife Sites Adviser Leonie Washington says as she leads us away from the bridge to look for other field signs, it would be a mistake to be complacent when it comes to otters.

“There is still much that can be done to enhance our waterways that will benefit otter and other riparian specialists such as water vole. It’s important that we don’t just assume that otter populations are stable and their distribution is continuous.”

She pauses, pointing out a smoothed down patch of grass where an otter has slid on its belly into the river; a desire line

PROTECTED SPECIES Otters are still included on the IUCN Red List and categorised as near threatened. They are protected under both British law (Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) (as amended) and European Law (Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations (2010) (as amended). It is an offence to injure, kill or disturb an otter or disturb or destroy its resting place or holt.

ALAMY

towards sparkling clear water.

“We’ve got to bear in mind that there are other factors beyond chemicals and pollution that can influence their numbers, such as road traffic accidents, disease, poor water quality and a decline in suitable habitat. We need to continue to survey to see exactly what is happening and monitor any changes that might be taking place.

“The last survey in 2010 indicated an increase in distribution and by re-launching

the survey now we will be able to compare the data and get a clearer picture of what is going on.”

The group bunches together again as another spraint is found by the river bank, placed deliberately and with some athleticism on a tall twist of grass. Leonie explains how spraints are used as a means of communication across ranges that can stretch for 40km; demarcating territory and even signalling readiness to mate (something otters can do all year round, although they usually have relatively small litters with long periods between them).

AQUATIC SPECIALIST

Between September and April volunteers will visit allocated monitoring sites across Suffolk at least once to see if they can detect signs of otter. Unlike with some species, otter surveying relies on being able to recognise field signs rather than spotting the animal itself.

The otter’s elusiveness is as much a characteristic as its broad muzzle, webbed feet and its thick tapering rudder-like tail.

Its ability to simply melt away is even more

We must make an odd sight, sploshing past the droppings, hoping for the musky whiff of jasmine that is characteristic of otter spraint

impressive when you consider the otter’s size; they can weigh between 7kg and 10kg.

On land these large mustelids can look lumbering, their long body and short legs giving them a humpy silhouette, but in water they are perfectly at home. Like fellow aquatic specialists the beaver, their coat consists of course guard hairs with an underlying layer of dense fur, which captures insulating air.

Otters also have special valves in their ears and nasal passages to prevent water from entering the body, while muscles in the eye adapt the lens for underwater hunting.

Otters generally only dive for between 10 and 40 seconds, but they can travel good distance in that time – abandoning their surface doggy paddle and pulling their front legs to the side of the body, while their hind legs and tail rockets them through the water. But it is their regal-looking whiskers the otter really relies on, using them to root out prey even on the darkest of nights.

Leonie leads us past an old holt and back to the bridge where we started. As the group heads off there is a temptation to linger in the hope the otter and its cub might re-appear. I pause, scanning the banks, the lay-up points and the rippling water.

Even if they are just feet away it is unlikely I would see them. For now knowing otters are still alive and well in Suffolk is enough. 

The Trust’s survey is not the only otter initiative taking place in the county. Suffolk Mammal Group are currently running a project that is using trail cameras and spraint analysis to understand more about population levels and how otters are using their territories.

FIND OUT MORE

MATT GAW

For more information or to take part, contact Richard Woolnough suffolkotters@outlook.com

An otter spraint found on a twist of grass by the river-bank

Volunteers look for signs of otter entering the water

An otter print found on a ledge under a bridge – a great place to look for signs

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 15

WILDLIFE FOR PEOPLE

A career

love o Emma Keeble 35, Lackford Lakes Education Officer

W

Suffolk Wildlife Trust has been running internships in environmental education and conservation for the last thirty years. We asked some of our past and present interns how their experiences Old Broom nature reserve with the Trust have helped them 16 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

hen I finished university, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my working life. All I knew was that I wasn’t destined for an office job and that I wanted to do something which allowed me to focus on my interest in wildlife and my love of the outdoors.

A family friend suggested I volunteer with Suffolk Wildlife Trust at Foxburrow Farm. I figured I might just as well give it a go; after all, trying to pay off my student loan by working in the local pub, lifeguarding and holding down numerous babysitting jobs was not exactly taking me to the places I wanted to reach in terms of a satisfying career, nor was it putting my ecology degree to good use!

I signed myself up as a volunteer at Foxburrow Farm helping with local school groups and after a few months, I was offered a seasonal contract as an education assistant – helping the education officer to run the education centre. By the end of that summer, there was no doubt in my mind about what I wanted to do and when the opportunity came up to run the visitor centre at Lackford Lakes I jumped at the chance. After 18 months I took over the role of education officer and have remained in post ever since!

All this happened 13 years ago now. I have no doubt the time I spent volunteering at Foxburrow Farm gave me valuable environmental education experience and put me on the road to one of the most rewarding jobs I know of!

TAKE FO INTE UR RNS

founded on a

f nature Ellen Shailes

22, Redgrave & Lopham Fen Intern

I

finished university and wanted to work in conservation, but I wasn’t sure how to get there. I started to volunteer with Suffolk Wildlife Trust at the Valley Fens work party first. I loved volunteering immediately. I found the physical work really enjoyable and alongside that I was learning new things every time I came out, so much that I had to start writing it all down. I was finding reed warbler nests and signs of water vole,

It’s one of the most rewarding jobs I know of! learning about marsh harrier behaviour and butterfly larval food plants, seeing hobbies and swifts over the fen. I discovered that the warden and assistant warden were both interns before they got their first jobs, so that became my next aim.

I am now the intern at Redgrave & Lopham fen and get to live on site at the education centre! There is a lot to learn on the fen. There’s tractor driving, tool use, species survey techniques, working with livestock, plant identification... the list goes on.

The most challenging parts for me are the really practical things like driving tractors, which I’ve never done before.

Thankfully I have great support from the reserves team to do so and the confidence I build in these practical skills will be vital when I come to look for a job.

Sarah King

Carl Herrington

24, Bradfield Woods Intern

33, Lound Lakes Warden

I

n 2007 I decided to volunteer on my local nature reserves to help out in managing the areas that I’d enjoyed since childhood.

Working as a carpenter, I took one day off a week to work with Natural England on the National Nature Reserves and was absolutely enthralled by the experience of working in these areas. This led to an opportunity to take a short-term contract as a seasonal warden managing visitors and protecting the shorebird nesting areas.

It was a difficult decision to turn my back on a secure job and pursue a career in conservation but when my contract ended I was desperate for an opportunity to learn and progress toward that dream job.

I continued volunteering with Natural England and added days with Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Broads Reserves Warden to my weekly plan. During this period the residential placement at Redgrave & Lopham Fen came up and needless to say, I jumped at it!

In my opinion, some of the most valuable skills learned are the small uncertificated “lessons” one can only learn from working alongside skilled staff and actually doing the job, those subtle experiences that build the knowledge and confidence to become a competent member of staff. I can honestly say that this was one of the most challenging and enjoyable periods of my life and was the turning point in me stepping into a full time career in conservation.

I

’ve been interning with the education team at Bradfield Woods since the beginning of February and I absolutely love it. Being an intern gives me the opportunity to become involved ‘behind the scenes’ and learn about the many different areas of the Trust. I help to plan lessons for school groups, organise activities for school holidays and prepare educational materials. I also have the chance to lead sessions, which was quite daunting to start with, but now I find it really enjoyable.

I’m working with such a variety of ages and abilities; from pre-school age up to A-level, people with special educational needs, as well as those who struggle to fit in to a regular school setting. It really is a fantastic experience and I feel like I am learning so much, sometimes without me even realising.

It really is a fantastic experience After graduating from Plymouth University with a BSc in conservation biology, I felt a little lost and didn’t know what area of conservation I wanted to go into. But when I consider going into education, I get really excited and feel like I finally know what I want to do. To be able to get a job in environmental education would be amazing, and I know that this internship is giving me just the experience I need to be able to do so.

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 17

WILDLIFE FOR PEOPLE

A brush with nature

STEVE AYLWARD

On the tenth anniversary of Roger Deakin’s death, Richard Mabey shares his memories of a writer, broadcaster and friend who was deeply passionate about the Suffolk countryside he called home

18 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

I

owe many kinds of personal thanks to Roger Deakin: for his optimism about the world, for his passion for Suffolk, for his simple generous friendship. I wouldn’t be living in his own stretch of the Waveney Valley now, with its ramshackle string of commons and fens and furze patches, if he hadn’t taken me under his wing during a low moment of my life.

LOVE FOR THE COMMON

All of us in the natural history world owe Roger a debt, not just for his luminous books, but for an immense network of enthusiasms and initiatives, of causes championed, corporations badgered, of essays, notes, letters, beautifully crafted radio meditations, elaborate green jokes. It was more than a network, it was a kind of imaginative ecosystem, bubbling with life and inventiveness, and its energy touched people way beyond Roger’s own locality.

But he wasn’t some fervent missionary for the wild. He simply lived out what he believed in, in a quiet but infectious way.

Central to his beliefs was a love for the common, in all senses of the word. He was a co-founder of Common Ground, the charity devoted to the celebration of the commonplace in nature and landscape. He lived on the edge of the great common of Mellis, and fought passionately to preserve its openness and ordinariness – sometimes, when necessary, against over-tidy conservationists. For him commonness – the blessing of continuity and abundance, and commonality – the sharing of land between fellow humans and their fellow creatures – were inextricably entwined, and the most precious, the most rare, of qualities. We often exchanged little news bulletins about what was happening on our home patches, four miles apart.

Seemingly mundane things, like the arrival

of the cuckoo, the state of the local bees, clouds of all kinds on the horizon.

WILD AT HEART

Occasionally I’d become over-excited about some prodigy – a flush of early marsh orchids in a thistly field, and Roger would respond, with the merest hint of a raised eyebrow, with a eulogy to buttercups.

Once, his corrective, his tribute to nature’s connectivity, was the September calling of tawny owls, “answering each other all round Mellis, and I guess all the way to you in Roydon.” He was exceptionally well-read and knew perfectly well he was echoing the poet Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’, with its vision of blackbirds singing, “Farther and farther, all the birds/ Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire”.

His commitment to his home countryside was uncompromising. He’d restored his 16th century farmhouse with his own hands,

and it was his epicentre, his laboratory, his museum. Dwelling properly there – he would not have approved of any description as bossy as “managing” it – was his major project, and took precedence over (though was intimately connected to) the writing. It was full of found stones, twigs from rivers, bizarre outdoor shoes and cobwebs whose sweeping into oblivion he regarded as an act of wanton destruction. Roger saw his spiders as more anciently entitled citizens of the farm than him, the newly settled guest. Outside was a madcap arcadia: hayfields gradually recovering their cowslips, raggle-taggle hedgerows, ancient cars driven into bushes and left there to form pergolas for brambles and foxes, new woodlets planted in concentric circles, shepherds’ huts in which he often wrote and slept, wild roses grown from seed gathered in the Middle East, which alas he never saw flower.

Deakin lived on the edge of the great common of Mellis, and fought passionately to preserve its openness and ordinariness Mellis Common with a view of the Old Maltings

SUFFOLK SUFFOLK WILDLIFE WILDLIFE 19 19

WILDLIFE FOR PEOPLE

CRICKET ORGAN

+ = His mischievous insect fantasy was to make an electronic organ based on the fact that crickets vary the pitch of their stridulations according to temperature. The crickets, encased in glass tubes, would be warmed and cooled by a keyboard control.

20 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

STEVE AYLWARD

Mellis Common

IML IMAGE GROUP LTD ALAMY

Walnut Tree Farm was Roger’s home, but not his limits. One of the standing jokes amongst his friends was that he had apparently been everywhere, done everything: run conservation projects in Africa, trekked with nomadic shepherds in the Greek mountains, trespassed in most of the desirable private wetlands in Britain. But the joke was on us: he had done these things. One of his last trips was to Krygyzstan, to live rough with the local tribes who camp out in the forest for the walnut and wild apple harvest, and he somehow smuggled home a sack of walnuts bigger than his luggage. He was quite fearless in his travels, believing that most beings were benign, and would respond to the philosophy of live and let live that he applied to all species.

I think Roger had an essentially comic – certainly un-tragic – view of creation, felt he was part of a gleeful conspiracy of wild beings – spiders, badgers, climbing roses (which he used to cover anything he didn’t like, rather than destroy it) – against the forces of oppression and order. His sense of humour was extraordinary. When Polly and I came to live near Diss, he sent us a welcome card, on which were mounted two empty Honesty seeds-head, and the caption: “Lunaria annua var Diss. VN: Diss Honesty. Originally rare and locally dist.

Now widespread. Identify by: missing seeds.”

His mischievous insect fantasy was to make an electronic organ based on the fact that crickets vary the pitch of their stridulations according to temperature. The crickets, encased in glass tubes, would be warmed and cooled by a keyboard control.

None of this was simply whimsy. Roger saw playfulness as a common ground between humans and nature, one of the places the poetic mammal could find a harmonious niche.

STEVE AYLWARD

COMIC VIEW OF CREATION

Roger grew up on Walnut Tree Farm in Suffolk, but he travelled extensively and amongst his adventures, trekked with nomadic shepherds in the Greek mountains

A LASTING LEGACY

His travels in central Asia were for his book, Wildwood; A Journey through Trees, an account of meandering through the woods of three continents. It was almost finished when he fell ill, and his editor was able to prepare the book for publication before he died. It is a wry masterpiece on the entanglements of the human and the natural but his most famous work remains Waterlog (1999), his evocative account of swimming through Britain. Waterlog is partly about access to water, but also about immersion. To go wild swimming is to join

the most fundamental and fluent natural entity on the planet, and to understand one’s place in it: “The next day I met an otter in the Waveney. I swam round a bend in my favourite river in Suffolk and there it was, sunning itself on a floating log near the reed-bed. I would have valued a moment face to face, but it was too quick for that. It slipped into the water on the instant, the big paddle tail following through with such stealth that it left hardly a ripple. But I saw its white bib and the unmistakable bulk of the animal and I knew I had intruded into its territory”. 

Roger had an essentially comic view of creation, felt he was part of a gleeful conspiracy of wild beings – spiders, badgers, climbing roses

Your magazine asdfsadfEhendandit quae nam ipsunt plitate ommodit vel molupti oreici cor audandam, quosantur? Qui iur moluptatis mintem imporem postium dest, atiur, evento quae corerat opta delita nonseque aliquae si officipsa que dignatur? Apid et ut odit aliquae atio od millabo. Itatquam que pliciis et esequo te verovit qui temosan dignatem fuga.

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fdghfdgh. Itas solorrum non paruptatiae. Nequis doles reperum quaspe nostio. Illuptas ut et enis vel mo cus excepere venis del mo miliae nulparum re con et periossus, omnis quodit hicto magnistium et everibus modia natumet alitatem volupti optat vel molupit et ius, quasini tiorerrunt, te volorerum con consequuntur sapelliquame conse sam ea quam et quisimus rerferia nonsedis essedita quo esedips aperspit untem quod ut volupis vollabo ribusam rentibus et omnitinctur, qui tem. Itatiore debis maiorem. Nam eate volorum id moluptam nitis ex est idus aut estrumet, et, tem receatquam re rest officia Mellis Common

All of us in the natural history world owe Roger a debt Skylarks sing at Mellis Common throughout the summer

RAN SCHOLS FLPA

Large intact commons such as Mellis Common are rare in our modern landscape.

The Enclosure Acts resulted in the loss of a great many commons as they became incorporated into farms and estates, radically changing the agricultural landscape of pre 18th century Suffolk. Standing in the middle of Mellis Common really is like taking a step back in time. Ignore the modern brick houses and focus on the older timber-framed and thatched buildings and it is possible to visualise a proper historic landscape much as it was in 1700. This is further enhanced by the fact that large swathes of the common were never agriculturally improved and in June, the common is a fabulous expanse of oxeye daisies, knapweed and other wildflowers.

The right to graze ‘great beasts’ ie cattle and horses, still exists and while it is no

longer possible to simply turn animals out and let them roam the entire common (the common was originally gated and the common boundary kept stock-proof), grazing remains an important activity with animals put out to graze different areas from May through to October. These days there is a more eclectic mix of animals compared to what might have grazed the common in the past. A herd of handsome pedigree Charolais cattle graze the western end of the common in stark contrast to the coloured ponies with their ‘feathered’ legs that are kept at the other end, while in between, well-groomed riding horses have their own small patch of common.

Wildlife of course flourishes in this wonderful pastoral landscape. While the great crested newts that inhabit the many ponds on the common are rarely seen, you would be unlucky not to

ALL BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT THE LITERARY ESTATE OF ROGER DEAKIN

see a barn owl at dusk or a kestrel hovering hunting for small mammals. Little owls are frequently observed perched on fence posts or overhead cables and skylarks sing all summer. Swifts, swallows and martins thrive and rear their young on the abundance of insects that waft up from the grass before returning to their overseas wintering grounds.

Little owls

VISIT MELLIS COMMON Darsham Marshes

Postcode: IP23 8DW Map ref: TM100746

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 21

PAUL SAWER FLPA

Suffolk Wildlife Trust is committed to protecting the landscape Roger Deakin loved at Mellis Common

UK NEWS

UK’s most-travelled dolphin?

Research assisted by Cornwall Wildlife Trust reveals one lone bottlenose dolphin’s incredible wanderlust

French fishermen named the raggedfinned dolphin Clet when he first followed their boats in 2008. Since then, the solitary male bottlenose has been seen as far north as the Isle of Mull, and as far west as Galway. He’s also visited Wales, the Isle of Man, Scilly, Dorset, Cornwall and Devon.

His wanderings have been mapped by the Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, working with the Sea Watch Foundation. The Records Centre is hosted by Cornwall Wildlife Trust and has collated sightings over the past five years.

Most bottlenose dolphins live in social groups and stick to a home territory. They face growing threats from noise disturbance, development and accidental capture in fishing nets.

The Trust believes Marine Protected Areas combined with local action to reduce these threats are the best way to protect highly mobile species.

Surfing the Mull-to-Arran ferry.

Clet’s damaged dorsal fin makes him easy to identify

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please report any new sighting of Clet to Niki.Clear@CornwallWildlifeTrust.org. uk. More on cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk

Clet’s travels

Showing off at Fowey, Cornwa ll. Clet usually seems to appreciate human company

ANGELA MARIE HENSHAW

NICK DAVIS, HEBRIDEAN WHALE & DOLPHIN TRUST

Dec 2014

Dec 2014 Oct 2014 Feb 2014 Sep 2014 Apr 2014

Aug 2015

LYNNE NEWTON

Online guide to summer wildlife

Puffins: simply irresistible

22 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

Beaver picture

Summer is the perfect time to immerse yourself in wildlife – and our new ‘Top Wildlife Experiences’ guide is bursting with ideas on how you can do it.

Fancy delighting in a glow

worm, staking out a badger sett, lounging with a lizard, making a splash with gannets, or falling for the fastest bird? These and many more are at: wildlifetrusts.org/lovewildlife

Plant a bat feast!

If you were attract moths to your garden like this elephant hawk moth, bats should soon follow

The Royal Horticultural Society, Bat Conservation Trust and The Wildlife Trusts have joined forces to encourage everybody to make steps to help bats in their area. For example, planting flowers in your garden attracts night insects, such as honeysuckle, evening primrose, globe artichoke and eryngium will make the perfect bat feast!

iFIND OUT MORE

TONY HAMBLIN/FLPA

Find out how to help bats in your garden with the new FREE online guide Stars of the Night, available on wildaboutgardens.org.uk

The Wildlife Trusts are setting out on a new partnership with Jordans Cereals, who have a long history of wildlifefriendly farming. Now their 42 farms, totalling 44,500 acres, will build on that heritage with advice from experts at their local Wildlife Trust, making a landscape-scale contribution to wildlife and communities. The Jordans Farm Partnership will create a model for UK farm sustainability and set new standards for nature-friendly farming.

A brown hare on a Jordans farm in Suffolk

MIKERAE.COM

iFIND OUT MORE

For a chance to win a case of Jordans granolas see jordanscereals.co.uk/wildlife

Look out for our badger logo on Jordans cereals later in the summer

IAN ANDREWS

Farming for wildlife

Marsh harrier

Marsh harrier breed at Redgrave for the first time Marsh harriers have successfully raised young at Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Redgrave & Lopham Fen nature reserve for the first time.

At least three young have fledged at the fen valley site and could be seen performing aerial food swaps with their parents until the end of July.

Richard Young, Valley Fen Warden, said he had hoped to see marsh harriers breeding at Redgrave for many years. “It shows that the reserve is now in really good condition in that it can support top predators like marsh harrier. Their success here is even more important as other breeding habitat closer to the coast turn brackish and are lost to the sea. Seeing so many marsh harrier in the air above Redgrave really is very special and it is a sight we hope will continue.”

iFIND OUT MORE

For more information about Redgrave & Lopham Fen visit suffolkwildlifetrust.org

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 23

LIVING LANDSCAPES

London’s brand new Closed to the public for 175 years, Hackney’s Woodberry Wetlands has now been restored. Emma Warren visits London Wildlife Trust’s newest reserve

I PENNY DIXIE

t’s a bright winter morning and a small band of Wildlife Trust members are ducking through a temporary entrance to Woodberry Wetlands in Stoke Newington, London. London Wildlife Trust’s David Mooney is corralling people through the hand-made doorway – “a Harry Potter portal” – hidden behind an advertising hoarding. They’re getting a sneak preview of London’s newest nature reserve. It’s a big moment. These are the first members of the public to enter the site since 1833 when Victorian industrialists had the reservoir dug by navvies to sell drinking water to the growing local population.

The view that greets the group as they walk along the brand new boardwalk is stunning – silvery reed beds all around the margins, spring sun reflecting on the water, and a gaggle of black-headed gulls dotted

24 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

about an island made of 200 year-old silt.

Wild places are important everywhere, but particularly in cities, as Sir David Attenborough made clear in his speech at the reserve’s opening event in May. “To hear birdsong above the hubbub of the traffic, to see the seasons as they pass, to see not just asphalt and brick and concrete but reeds and willows. It is a necessity for all of us.”

The wildlife is as spectacular as the vista; snipe and breeding cetti’s warblers (firsts for Hackney), as well as sedge warblers and great crested grebes. “It’s like

To see not just asphalt and concrete but reeds and willows is a necessity for all of us

being out in the countryside,” says Terry Skippen, who has volunteered here for 18 months. “It’s amazing to see all this nature and wildlife in inner London”.

The £1.5m site, has been brought into the public realm by an extraordinary collaboration between the Wildlife Trust, Hackney Council, site owners Thames Water and Berkeley Homes. The Heritage Lottery Fund pitched in £750k to restore the coal house, which is now the site’s café, and a central part of the Trust’s plan to bring in a new audience. There are dawn chorus walks with breakfast thrown in and bat evenings with dinner.

The Trust has invested in the cultural side too. The wrought iron gates were inspired by Charles Rennie Macintosh’s Glasgow School of Art and they’ve hired illustrator Celyn Brazier to create tapestries instead of the standard watercolour

green oasis WOODBERRY WETLANDS

EMIRATES STADIUM OLYMPIC PARK

CITY OF LONDON

TOWER OF LONDON RIVER THAMES

Sir David Attenborough with David Mooney and Francisco Do Carmo at the opening event in April: “This is what makes life important.”

TOP THREE PICS PENNYDIXIE.CO.UK

A 10 minute walk from Manor House Station. 226 Lordship Road, N16 5HQ

information panels.

“We’ve gone for something unusual because we want to attract Londoners who might not normally come to a nature reserve. And we want them to realise that they love wildlife,” says David Mooney.

“This area suffers from high socioeconomic deprivation. There’s a severe lack of high quality green space.”

Francisco Do Carmo started out as a volunteer five years ago before becoming the wetland’s conservation volunteer officer. He and his team cut the reed on a four-year rotation and last winter planted 400 metres of hedgerow all along the outer fence. They’re creating a woodland trail, they built the volunteers’ hut and put up all the fencing. It’s hard graft that has attracted 220 volunteers over the last two and a half years. “People come from all over London,” he says. “It’s just a special place.” n

Bat detectors have revealed all three pipistrelles, Daubenton’s and Leisler’s bat

The reed cutting work party keeps the wetland from becoming a scrubland

ALASTAIRMARSHPHOTOGRAPHY.CO.UK

Where is it?

The 11 hectare wetland reserve is a huge new asset for local people and wildlife

Woodberry’s great crested grebes. “Very rare 100 years ago,” said Sir David. “It’s marvellous to see things getting better.”

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 25

MATTHEW ROBERTS

WILDLIFE FOR PURPLE EMPEROR PEOPLELANDSCAPES LIVING

Born to be w Children getting to grips with nature at Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Knettishall Heath reserve

26 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 26

D

Our hunter-gatherer past designed us to move around outdoors in groups with a sense of purpose. We’re still like that now, which is why modern life makes us ill – and why getting back in touch with nature can make us well again.

Dr William Bird reports

epression. Diabetes. Obesity.

As a doctor I see chronic diseases every day. They are part of modern life. And they have grown as we have become more and more ‘modern’. Or, to put it another way, more and more sedentary, more disconnected from nature. Could this disconnection be one of the main causes?

I’m lucky enough to be editing the Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health.

So I can say that some very clever people from all the top universities – including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Melbourne, Brisbane – are now looking very, very hard at what’s actually happening to our brains and bodies when we get disconnected from nature. And the results are in. But first, let’s get the story straight.

SO, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

WHO ARE WE?

DOES LACK OF NATURE CAUSE CHRONIC STRESS?

Let’s look at what’s changed. First of all, we’re often isolated. Loneliness is one of the chief causes of ill health in cities; its effect on the rate of heart disease is exactly the same as smoking 20 cigarettes a day.

We are not designed to be lonely.

Second, we are not designed to look at concrete and areas of threat. We are designed to look at nature and we are designed to be in touch with nature.

Third, we’re not designed to have no purpose. We want to do things, to make things, to be useful.

If we get these three things wrong, we get chronic stress. Note that’s not the same thing as acute stress, which is different.

We all get acute stress when we’re doing something we don’t particularly like, but we know by the evening it will all be over.

Chronic stress is when you go We are not designed to to sleep and you wake up with sit for long periods indoors the same anxiety, worry or fear because things aren’t right. looking at a screen

ild

I’d like to take you back 100,000 years. And let’s imagine those 100,000 years are 24 hours. So 24 hours ago we were hunter gatherers. Genetics were making us better and better at it, generation by generation.

And every single part of being a good hunter-gatherer is connected to the environment.

Then, just two and a half hours ago, agriculture starts. We’re still outdoors – and in fact most of us are still hunter-gatherers – but we start to have herds of sheep and cattle and then, later still, we start growing things in the ground.

The first cities come along an hour ago.

So think about those 24 hours: this is just an hour. And still people are active. Then industrialisation, two and a half minutes ago. Digital technology, 20 seconds. And suddenly here we are, sitting for long periods, often looking at a screen. That is not what we were designed to do – and we just can’t adjust in those 20 seconds. So we are now in a hostile environment for which our minds and bodies were not designed.

Let’s look at some experiments. And I can assure you, there are loads of these.

The first one is over the page: the city street with and without trees. It shows how even a subliminal exposure to a picture of trees has a positive effect on cognitive performance. So clearly it’s not just our conscious side. There’s something deeper in us that responds to the sight of those trees, because the people weren’t actually conscious that they’d seen them. But that engagement was so important.

Another study, which has been repeated many times, relates green space to depression and anxiety. Of course, the researchers have to adjust out other factors such as affluence and education.

But people living in areas with tree cover showed significantly reduced anxiety and depression.

Another looked at children facing significant problems in their lives and found that their stress in high nature surroundings was significantly less than in low nature. In SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 27

WILDLIFE FOR PEOPLE other words, nature was helping to reduce their overall stress.

A huge study of mortality data looked at how green the subjects’ neighbourhood was. It showed that just having greenery and trees, particularly in deprived areas, reduced the health inequalities between rich and poor.

THIS MAKES YOU ILL

At the cell level, inflammation is the cause of almost every disease we have. It means our immune system is heating up and sending out signals. It causes all 23 chronic diseases that afflict us, including diabetes and heart disease.

Chronic stress increases visceral fat – that’s fat inside your body. We all have fat on the outside of our bodies, but it’s the stuff inside that’s the dangerous bit.

You can’t see it and it’s poisonous. It generates lots of this inflammation.

Unfortunately the more inactive we are, the more stressed we are and the more we eat the wrong things, the more that visceral fat grows.

Trees in deprived areas reduce the health inequality between rich and poor HOW DO WE GET WELL?

The good news is that if you become habitually active and your stress levels drop, then even if you don’t lose any weight, the visceral fat reduces. So getting outdoors and not being stressed reduces your instances of chronic inflammation.

And getting out is a lot easier when you have a purpose (see Gym v Work Party opposite). In short we are designed to be connected to nature and when we disconnect we develop chronic stress, so we eat more and exercise less. This means we lay down visceral fat and damage our cells (see box on p29). All of this leads to chronic disease and it seems clear to me that connecting people to nature is therefore good medicine. n Dr William Bird, MBE is an expert on the effects of nature on health. He is founder of intelligenthealth.co.uk

iFIND OUT MORE

For more information on nature & health intelligenthealth.co.uk

28 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

ISTOCK

WHY DO WE GET ILL?

THE SCIENCE OF WHY WE ALL TREES EVEN MAKE YOU BETTER AT MATHS!

Here are two pictures of the same street, one with trees added in Photoshop. The researchers showed people one or other of the pictures for a short while, and then gave them a mental arithmetic test, taking 13 away from 1000 repeatedly. They recorded their subjects’ success and repeated the whole experiment many times.

City street without trees Group 1 just saw this picture for a minute or so. Their scores were the lowest.

Group 2 were shown the same thing but with the trees below added just for a microsecond, so it was subliminal.

They scored better.

Group 3 saw the trees normally for the full minute. They scored the same as Group 2 – the people who saw the trees momentarily.

City street with trees Group 4 saw the tree version too, but they also had someone telling them about those trees: what type they were, what animals lived there, what their evolution was. So they got engaged and interested.

They did the best.

Research by Ying-Hsuan Lin, Chih-Chang Tsai, William C. Sullivan, Po-Ju Chang, and Chun-Yen Chang. Originally published in Frontiers in Psychology 2014

WHO ARE WE?

THIS MAKES YOU BETTER

YEARS AGO 100K

HUNTER GATHERERS

I’ve picked a date of 100,000 years ago to keep it simple, but in fact modernlooking human hunter gatherers first emerged about 200,000 years ago

FIRST HERDERS

RUPERT PAUL/BBC WT

75K

NEED NATURE As you read this, hopefully your brain cells are whirring away. They use 20-30% of your energy. The rest is in your muscles, where the mitochondria, the little batteries in your cells, are all charged up, saying: “Hey! Ready to go!”

How does your phone feel after a night on charge? It’s warm, because electrons have been leaking out. Exactly the same here, your mitochondria have been charged up all this time and they can’t hold it. It’s like a cracking dam – bits of water flowing through the gaps.

These little bits are called free radicals and they start coming out when you’re not doing anything. The longer you sit there, the more the free radicals come out. Soon they start to damage your mitochondria. You’ve only got 35 in each cell; zap too many and the cell stops.

So finally you’ve got up and started walking. The charge drops, because you’re using it. No more free radicals.

Antioxidants build up, you get more mitochondria and you clear up all the debris in the cell. So as soon as you start activity, loads of good things happen.

But if you don’t move and sit still even longer, the radicals start to damage your cells’ ability to divide. Effectively, their ageing speeds up. And as the cells die they send out inflammatory agents.

FIRST CITIES

GYM v WORK PARTY

So we need to be active, connected to nature and social. But how to get people to do these things? For that we need to have some purpose. Here’s a woman taking part in two activities, and what she said.

heart rate

DON’T SIT STILL!

Agriculture began 10,000 years ago when people swapped hunting for keeping herds of sheep and cattle

50K

4,000 years ago the first cities appeared.

People began to specialise

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

CONSERVATION WORK “I met all these new people; we had a real good laugh. We went out, we built a walkway and there was a badger sett. I had no idea the badgers changed their own bedding.”

150 25K

Mechanised production began in the late 1700s, powered by fossil fuel and the factory system. Manual labour was still widespread

100

50

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

STEP AEROBICS “Brilliant! I got my heart rate up to 75% of my VO2 Max. I learned how to tone up my pecs.

I’ve got all these exercises I can do.”

0 10 20 30 40 50 mins Her gym comments were all about her body and herself. After the work party she didn’t talk about herself or her health at all. But she actually did more exercise.

0

Computers have been a part of daily life for 25 years, the internet for 20, smartphones for ten. In terms of our history, that’s nothing

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 29

GREAT DAYS OUT

10 great places to see bats The more you know about these long-lived, far-flying insect hunters, the more amazing they are. So make time to see them this year

B

Dusk: the ideal time to see bats. Or even hear them

roosts and limber up for the hunt. The suggestions below are some of the best but get in touch with Suffolk Wildlife Trust for other places to visit.

And there is no need for lots of equipment. A bat detector (from £60) is nice if you can afford it. Or an ID chart by the Field Studies Council costs about £3.

MATTHEW ROBERTS

ats are amazing.

Take the common pipstrelle, Britain’s most widespread bat species. It’s tiny enough to crawl into a matchbox but strong enough to fly hundreds of kilometres on a summer night and gobble thousands of midges.

Britain is home to 18 species of bat, 17 of which breed here.

And now is a great time to see these winged wonders as they emerge from their daytime

iFIND OUT MORE

http://wtru.st/places-bats

Your bat adventure starts here

1

Captain’s Wood, Suffolk WT The veteran trees provide excellent habitat for bats and at least seven species of bat have been recorded in the wood.

Where is it? Sudbourne, Woodbridge IP12 2BE.

2

Finemere Wood, Aylesbury Berks, Bucks & Oxon WT Atmospheric ancient woodland with much-studied populations of Natterer’s, brown long-eared, and Bechstein’s bats.

Where is it? Lee Rd, Quainton, Aylesbury HP18 0QN.

3

Bystock Pools, Exmouth Devon Wildlife Trust Hugely popular heathland, grassland and lake with seven species of bat, including brown long-eared and Daubenton’s.

Where is it? 4 miles north of Exmouth EX8 5EB.

4

Lackford Lakes, Suffolk WT This complex of lakes in west Suffolk attracts several species of bats, including soprano pipistrelles and Daubenton’s which can often be seen feeding over the water.

30 SUFFOLK WILDLIFE

8

Where is it? Lackford, Bury St Edmunds IP28 6HX.

Falls of Clyde Reserve, South Lanarkshire, Scottish WT 16th century ruined castle is a perfect roost for pipistrelle and Daubenton’s. Natterer’s and whiskered have also been seen.

Where is it? New Lanark, South Lanarkshire ML11 9DB.

5

Browne’s Folly, Bath Avon Wildlife Trust Has great views and 13 of the UK’s 17 species, including greater horseshoe and the UK’s second ever recorded Geoffroy’s bat.

Where is it? Above the village of Bathford, Avon.

9

Hanningfield Reservoir, Essex WT From April to October 400-500 Soprano pipistrelle bats gather in the roof of the visitor centre, in a maternity roost.

Where is it? Hanningfield Reservoir visitor centre, Hawkswood Rd, Downham, Billericay CM11 1WT.

6

Bailey Einon, Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire WT Ancient woodland along the river Ithon. Watch from the bridge or boardwalk to see Daubenton’s bats feeding over the water.

Where is it? 1 mile east of Llandrindod Wells, Powys LD1 5PD.

10

Bat Punt Safari, Cambridge Beds, Cambs & N’hants WT A punt-propelled safari on the river Cam with bat detectors and expert guides every Friday evening until 23 September.

Tours depart just before dusk. Visit scudamores. com for timings and tickets.

7

Boilton Wood, Preston Lancashire WT The main path is a highway for bats as well as walkers. See soprano and common pipistrelle, noctule and Daubenton’s.

Where is it? Boilton Wood Local Nature Reserve, Preston PR2 6HD.

8

7 6 5 3

10 4 1 2 9

Bats are most common in the south and west

KIM TAYLOR/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY

Details on each of these sites are on your Wildlife Trust’s website.

You can find that via wildlifetrusts.org

Learn to help bats

Bats are un der threat fr om lack of food , shrinking h and develo abitat pment. Our new a pack shows how everyo ction ne can make garde n spaces more s and green bat-friendly . See wildaboutg ardens. org.uk

A Natterer’s bat having a drink in a garden pond in Surrey. It’s just over two inches long and weighs five to nine grammes

SUFFOLK WILDLIFE 31

Their lasting gift to Suffolk

T

he extraordinary generosity of Trust members and friends who remembered Suffolk Wildlife Trust in their Will has protected some of the county’s most inspiring natural places, for people to cherish for generations to come.

Seizing opportunities to buy or enlarge our nature reserves is one of the most powerful ways in which we secure a better future for wildlife. Legacy gifts make this possible. Indeed legacies have been instrumental in every land

purchase in recent years.

A gift in your Will to Suffolk Wildlife Trust will be kept separate from the Trust’s day to day finances to be used for projects which have a direct and lasting impact on the county’s wildlife.

STEVE AYLWARD

To find out more about how a gift in your Will could help Suffolk’s wildlife, please contact Christine Luxton on 01473 890089

Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Brooke House Ashbocking, Ipswich IP6 9JY 01473 890089 info@suffolkwildlifetrust.org suffolkwildlifetrust.org Registered charity no 262777

suffolkwildlifetrust.org