6 ACT FOR NATURE
NIGHT WALK by Annie Sturgeon
Don’t be afraid to walk the fen at night. At setting sun the early evening light produces mole-black shadows of delight — Is that a swallow in the fading light? or something darker on its dusky flight?
Watch how it’s flitting past with stealth-like ease dodging and twisting in the evening breeze fluttering in the shadows of the leaves; there’s something darker dancing from the trees.
Its pug-face pricked with beady eyes, jet black, fur of frosted coal-dust on its back, clicks like a pony trotting down a cobbled track into a cheeping ‘zip’ with its attack.*
Hunting for micro-moths and softer flies, serrated wings against the blue-black sky, along the water’s edge it hawks and dives and flutters like a tar-smudged dragonfly.
Its birdlike wings, unfeathered, are of skin night-black and almost tissue thin. With soundless, flapping, agile cape it skims to scoop emerging flies that rise within.
Day’s yawn imagines magic in the night between the sun-hot hours and cool starlight a rare black flitting Barbastelle just might be something darker on its dusky flight.
At sunset in the early evening light look out for mole-black shadows of delight — Was that a swallow in the fading light?
*The sounds of a Barbastelle translated by a bat detector. DAUGHTER GODDESS by Clare Woroniecka
Don’t mistake me for a dog. As you were drawing my whiskers You imagined the way his nose Feels nuzzling your hand – The wiry soft touch.
My whiskers are for rummaging Down where it’s hard to see Searching, standing out stiff A mystery An orgy of senses in the gloom. I turn She follows me down as she must, Still wet from birth. Green gold liquid calls Salty tang draws She will follow to deeper wells of unknown In time.
Her body already knows: Flick of her tail, turn of her flippers. And out under the sky to lie and lie My head held up alert She is lost in the glorious creamy lap. We are selkies, she and me
Goddesses of swimming – nimble flicks, sensuous glide Turning, turning, through, down, up.
Our ancestors clubbed to death Envied for our fur Disturbed by our seeing Under the silver blue, down in the dreamy swaying We are Queens.
She will inherit Kelp castles Royal cape, streamlined insulation, Chilling underworlds, A crown of knives in her mouth To tear flesh, crunch bones.
at the Holme Dunes reserve up to 25 pairs breed each spring. The Trust employs a seasonal little tern warden to assist the resident warden to monitor and protect the colony. Fencing is erected to ensure people do not disturb the birds. However, along with having to deal with naturally occurring predators, the birds are easily worried by dogs and their owners approaching too close, so we try to educate people to give the colony a wide berth. Rising sea levels and unseasonal storms can also wreck a breeding season, however numbers are holding and with proper consideration by the public should continue to do so. The adults can be seen feeding along the water’s edge near colonies, so they can be seen without approaching the nest site. The fenced areas can also act as a ‘safe area’ for other breeding birds particularly ringed plover.’
2 PINK FOOTED GOOSE Skeins a thrilling sight
HABITAT These long-travelled flocks of birds show the links between coastal, inland and global habitats. It doesn’t breed in the UK, but large numbers spend the winter here, arriving from their breeding grounds in Spitsbergen, Iceland and Greenland. Pink foots provide an unforgettable sight flying in ‘skeins’ to roost. Often to be seen in large groups on inland grazing marshes or winter wheat-fields; they have learnt to enjoy the discarded sugar-beet tops left lying on muddy fields after harvest.
HABITS This ‘grey’ goose is predominately brown, and relatively diminutive, its chocolate coloured head and small brown, orange banded bill are defining features. In Norfolk huge skeins of pink-footed geese in their classic V-formations, can be seen in their thousands; they listen for them uttering their high-pitched honk of ‘wink-wink’.
ISSUES
Numbers in England are on the increase, particularly in Norfolk, probably due to better protection of winter roosts. But they are highly vulnerable to disturbance and development – and as farmers change their crop practices the geese are less able to forage.
WHAT YOU CAN DO Keep your dog under control if you are near roosting grounds – these birds need to conserve energy for their long journeys.
NORFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST CONDITION CHECK ‘Norfolk has become, once again, important winter quarters for this species. From a low in the 1950s of only a few thousand, counts of well over 150,000 birds have been noted in recent years and this represents a large proportion of the world population. It is important to engage with farmers concerning leaving these fields unploughed for as long as possible. Breeding in Iceland and Greenland, successive poor summers and heavy predation of goslings can affect the population, but it is disturbance, changes in agriculture and land development in Norfolk that is their greatest threat, so their protection needs constant vigilance and like many migratory birds, a global strategy.’
NORFOLK COAST GUARDIAN 2021
Harbour seal on the beach. Elizabeth Dack/NWT 3 HARBOUR OR COMMON SEAL
Beach pups HABITAT
The sea and the beach along the coast. HABITS
Harbour, or common, seals are marine mammals, more vulnerable and smaller than grey seals, with rounded heads and large brown eyes. They breed during the summer months. Males live up to 20 years, females up to 30 years.
ISSUES Threats include disturbance by people and dogs; (mother may lose or abandon their pups if they are forced into the sea trying to avoid); marine waste and litter; pollution and storms.
WHAT YOU CAN DO Stay well away from seals if you see them and keep dogs under close control.
NORFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST CONDITION CHECK ‘In Norfolk the Harbour seal breeding population is concentrated on the sandbanks out in the Wash. Occasionally harbour seals will pup on coastal beaches and as this is during the summer, disturbance is a problem. It is believed the canine distemper that was in the grey seal population may have been transferred into the species from dogs. As with all marine mammals, pollution, boat strike and entanglement in fishing gear is a problem. Education is an important factor in protecting this species.’
at grey tide edge little tern hovers holding its gaze seaward watching the cold water for slippery sand eels before its plunge
Little Terns (Sternula albifrons) Flying along the Beach at Winterton-on-Sea.
4 BARBASTELLE BAT
Rarest of mammals
HABITAT Known as the ‘bat of the landscape’ as they rely on good quality countryside with space to forage and live. A keystone species, they represent the wider health of the ecosystem. Stronghold in parts of the Norfolk coast, with links to historic and cultural buildings. Looking after their range of habitats, from woodland edges to farmland and freshwater bodies, links to dark skies and issues of light pollution, will also benefit other bat species and invertebrates.
LITTLE TERN by Melinda Appleby
yellow daggered and straight through the wave
returning up and up and higher sand eel held tight as it soars above then in a dance down to sand it offers its
token of courtship to the female below starting its
summer breeding on the Norfolk beach where it was born three years ago and now in the small scrape of shell and sand on the pebbled
strand the eggs are laid as mottled as the land beneath and here, here the sea swallow raises young with hope that fox and kestrel let them live and no dog or human appears on
the tide lin
e !
Graham Brownlow - Norfolk Wildlife Trust
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