Back to Nature

Far from the madding crowd....

Sunrise over the North Sea, streaming across the extraordinary poppy fields that this year have coated north Norfolk in waving fields of blood.  

A little while before sun rise I just caught the moon going down, a tiny bright pinprick in the sky:

And then here comes the sun, and I say, "It's alright...."

It all happens so fast.  Daylight like a rising flash, a lightning, I find it all hard to believe, so I ask a passing skylark to take my pic from above:

And then he takes a speckled stutter of spatters without me (can you trust anyone these days?):

And that was last week. 

Yes, life is racing by.  Only a few weeks ago the cowslips were like a delicately quilted coverlet spread across the countryside.  

 

Then they gradually faded, seeping into beige and pale lemony green.  And then we had the poppies, fields and fields of them, filling the air with a dozy haze in the evening air while we walked.

Today I walk from my home to the north coast, some eight and half miles along lanes and footpaths, and the poppies are pale and fringed with age, their petals bruised with the flapping winds we have had in the last few days.....

And now they are being succeeded, by hawkweeds, or hawkbits, or common cat's-ears (please excuse my inexactitude; life is too short....)

So anyway.  I've been in the city.  I've had some slightly startling speedy heartbeats, and I am glad to be back in the fresh air, walking comfortably above the ground, fluttered by butterflies:

Two ringlets exchanging greetings

I am just off the Peddars' Way, only sixteen miles north of Castle Acre,

The landscape tells human stories.  Here a dry cereal crop leads you down to a red stone farm which lies just by the old railway line from Hunstanton to Fakenham.....

Here a shady oak frames a bucolic fold of hills with, though you cannot see it, a red kite trawling for worms.....

Then we have the hedgerows and wildflowers, exchanging their bodily fluids with the insects of the air to enable life, of all sorts, to go on.  Without this, you should know, we are all doomed....  Insect sex is everything we need....

A white-tailed bumblebee on knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on Knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on field scabious

A small white butterfly on bramble flowers

John Clare wrote:

Though simple to some I delight in the sight

Of such objects that bring unto me

A picture of picturesque joy and delight

Where beauty and harmony be

Oh I love at my heart to be strolling along

Oer the heath a new impulse to find

While I hum to the wind in a ballad or song

Some fancy that starts in the mind

All seems so delightful and bring to the mind

Such quiet and beautiful joys

That the mind when its weary like hermits may find

A retreat from earths folly and noise

The Heath

John Clare

I walk on.  Every day is new.  The shift from yellow to red to brown and so on is all part of the rich weft of colour that our world, when undisturbed, offers to the wanderer.  Seasonal.  Transitional. Always changing; always developing.  I am just perplexed by the rapidity of these changes.  

Don't read anything into these musings.  I breast the hill leading down to the coast and see,  distantly but clearly, Lincolnshire to one side, and a wind farm to the other.  As far as I can see there is life.  And life only.  

The foreground is filled with asparagus ferns, from the young plants that need to mature before they are harvested.  This is where I live, now.  This is beautiful.  I am happy to share it with you.....

Time flies by

In the blink of an eye

When you get paid for having too much fun

Kicking out the foot lights

Living the night life

Like tomorrow ain't never going to come

Wouldn't change much of nothing

About this road we've been running

For of wild times, wild women, and a song

But we would've taken much better care of ourselves

If we would have known we would live this long

Live This Long

Willie Nelson 

Merle Haggard

Art and Wildlife

The Massingham Heath Project

The sky is bubble wrap grey and a Norfolk lazy wind (one that goes through you not round you!) ruffles the anoraks. It is a dry May day and a group of 18 members of the Society of Wildlife Artists (https://swla.co.uk/ ) have gathered at Olly Birkbeck's Wedding Barn, 

off Church Lane, Little Massingham, in Norfolk for a week's residency, though the project will involve over thirty artists who will follow the seasons for a whole year.

Nick Acheson, naturalist and conservationist https://themarshtit.com/) is here, adding his expertise to the wealth of knowledge already in the air, but also as he is to write the text of a book to celebrate the changing flora, fauna and landscape of the heath throughout the year.

Landowner Olly Birkbeck inherited the estate some eight years ago, and is intent on restoring former heathland and establishing species rich meadows which he hopes will link up with a number of neighbouring farms to provide a nature corridor through this part of Norfolk. 

The artists at this residency include: Carry Akroyd, Richard Allen, Marco Brodde, Dan Cole, Brin Edwards, Johnnie Foker, Federico Gemma, Simon Griffiths, Amie Haslen, Kittie Jones, Wynona Legg, Melanie Mascarenhas, Harriet Mead, Bruce Pearson, Dafila Scott, Jane Smith, Chris Wallbank and Darren Woodhead.

I am here as my friend, sculptor Simon Griffiths (https://www.simongriffithssculpture.co.uk/ ), is one of the resident artists this week, and he will be giving a demonstration of his work (sculpting a tawny owl in clay) on Sunday 11th May from 10.00 to 12.00 (if you are interested in seeing this, please book a - free - place via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creating-a-wildlife-sculpture-in-clay-tickets-1321537256509?aff=ebdssbdestsearch)

But if you cannot get there for that, there will be an exhibition at the Wedding Barn on Wednesday 14th May from 16.00 to 20.00 and all of the work from the week will be on display and there will be opportunities to meet the artists.  There will also be other happenings as the year develops, particularly in mid-August (16th/17th) when there will be events both at Little Massingham Village Hall and on the Heath.

Despite the dry spring (which has hindered much of the flora) there is plenty to see on the Estate, and I am privileged to join the group for a tour.  SWLA Friend and Project Committee Member Tim Baldwin lives locally and is with us to explain some of the geology, for example where the acid heath turns to chalk heath, and both Olly and he talk about biodiversity and regenerative practice.

On the tour we encounter the herd of Dexter cattle (a hardy breed that originated in County Kerry in the eighteenth century), 

Konik ponies (a very hardy mouse-grey breed of small horses from Poland), Bagot goats (a rare breed of goat possibly originating in the Rhone Valley and brought to England in 1380 as a gift for John Bagot of Blithfield Hall by returning Crusaders with Richard II)  and a very friendly Tamworth pig (the only red-coloured British pig, of origins unknown, but developed in Tamworth).

The air is full of skylarks (cleverly disguised as clouds); a crow spars with a kite overhead,

though the kite survives to check us out. 

We hear birdsong everywhere, with both Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats being in evidence, as well as Thrushes, Wrens and Robins.  There are Stone Curlews on the land, though we don't see one today, and high above us, too high to photograph, two Goshawks are briefly seen in display.  There are also a variety of butterflies and insects to be seen, some of them quite difficult to find, 

such as this Click Beetle:

The tour ends with a sumptuous picnic (kindly provided by Olly's wife) in a sheltered spot, and the sun comes out to warm the strawberries.  

Then, with a quick viewing of an ancient stone pit (a massive quarry, partly chalk but probably also a source of flint) 

hard by the Peddars Way, a track used by itinerant traders in the Middle Ages but dating back to at least Roman times, we return to base and, the artists get to work on their individual approaches to the project.

If you are interested in this project, please follow this link  (Projects | SWLA News | Announcements | Exhibitions Massingham Heath Project Public Events in May The SWLA Heath Project launches in May with the first group of artists spending a week working on site. Learn more about the opportunities to visit and see the work that has been created at the very start of this year long project. Published 21 April 2025)

With many thanks for this great Field Day in particular to Olly Birkbeck for his hospitality, and to Harriet Mead, Tim Baldwin, Jane Smith, Nick Acheson, Simon Griffiths and all the others who made me welcome and didn't mind my camera.

Norfolk

Blakeney and the Norfolk Coast Path

It is exactly 100 years since the National Trust acquired Blakeney Point and established Norfolk’s first nature reserve. This Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has something for everyone.

Peter expertly pilots his clinker-built craft close to the shore of Blakeney Point. Young pups swim around us, watching us with their deep eyes, while their parents laze on the sand, smiling for the cameras. A little way away a gang of teenage seals, common and grey, hang out by the water’s edge, as teenagers do. Peter, born and bred in Blakeney, points out courting Sandwich Terns, and Little Terns that plunge from flight to catch sand eels.

Seal-spotting and bird watching are two of the great attractions in this National Nature Reserve, which celebrates its hundredth anniversary with the “Tidal Lands” exhibition in Blakeney Village Hall from August 18th this year. The Reserve, managed by the National Trust, covers some 1000 hectares including the four mile long shingle spit of Blakeney Point, freshwater marshes by the river Glaven near the village of Cley, and saltmarshes carpeted with common seablite, samphire and sea lavender. There are also extensive mudflats at low tide and dunes held together by marram grass, where colonies of Terns nest and Oyster Catchers, Ringed Plovers and Redshanks strut to feed.

Along the Norfolk Coastal Path, which runs through Blakeney for forty-six miles from Hunstanton to Cromer, Linnets and Yellowhammers frequent the gorse, and Skylarks fly high above the grasses. Flocks of Brent Geese winter here, and Cormorants can be seen fishing in the tidal creeks.

Although Blakeney’s heyday was in the seventeenth century, when it rivalled King’s Lynn as a port, it was still a busy harbour until a hundred years ago. A Lifeboat Station was built on the point in 1898, but it was decommissioned in 1935 when silting and longshore drift finally put an end to its viability. The building now houses the National Trust information centre and provides accommodation for the wardens. At high tide it is a laborious walk to the point on the shingle, but at low tide vast areas of hard sand are exposed and in fine weather you can imagine you are Robinson Crusoe on a deserted coast.

Blakeney is home to about eight hundred people, though that number must double in the summer and probably quadruples on a sunny day, when children splash in the creek or fish for crabs from the quay. There are two major hotels and two pubs, the Kings Arms, a traditional inn with showbiz connections through hostess Marjorie Davies and her late husband Howard, and the White Horse, where Francis and Sarah Guildea have introduced a twenty-first century touch to local ingredients.

Although walking is a great way to see the area, the Coasthopper bus service can take the pain out of the return journey, with services every half an hour in summer between Wells and Cromer. However the easiest way to admire the coast is from a boat. Look out for Peter from Bishop’s Boats; he will introduce you to this spectacular world!

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/blakeney/things-to-see-and-do/events/