I feel more alive as soon as I clamber out of the car. I breathe more deeply, feeling my aching muscles soften and relax as I look out towards the dune and catch my first glimpse of sea blue. I could have been a beach bum had my life taken different turns and I feel as if I’ve come home again. There is ozone in the clear, sparkling air. The sky, unusually for East Anglia in October, is bright blue and almost completely cloudless. This is blue space at its most glorious, best and I’m setting off to explore what is – for me – a new trail over land but still within sight of the water.
I’ve often fortified my energy levels with a bacon buttie from the café at South Beach in Heacham either before or after a tramp along the luminous coast [i], so first things first; a delicious snack.
The map on the board beside the car park outlines where I’ll be heading – towards Snettisham – along a mix of unsurfaced paths, pavements and lanes. That will be a change from gravel and sand along the beach which is increasingly hard work on my increasingly ageing bones. Climbing up to the curving aluminium steel gate, I spy the fields stretching out before me. Soon the caravans to the left and holiday cabins to the right have all been left behind as I head along the ridge towards the afternoon sun and Ken Hill Estate where they are fighting climate change through new ways of farming in harmony with wildlife[ii]. Reed banks are swaying gently in the breeze. I’m too far away to hear them whispering because I’m up high. The cut grasses lie amongst a harvested field – looks like haymaking or for silage … maybe? Wonder why it’s been left like that.
In the sky above the marsh, a magnificent kite[iii] flies right over my head, perpendicular to my path, facing into the wind, its white parts and tail clearly visible and its wings gently flapping. It’s truly been a breathtaking start to my walk. In the Middle Ages kites were known as nature’s street cleaners; in contemporary Cambridgeshire the rascals are stealing meat from top carnivores in Hammerton Zoo[iv]. What tasty morsel will this one find here in the saltmarsh, I wonder.
Breathing in sunshine, I stride out past the sluice gates and I’m looking down on a network of creeks[v]. Some sparkling, reclaimed ponds sit amongst the saltmarsh between me and the sea wall, reflecting the perfect puffiness of the clouds. I am reminded of ecological restoration work by some former students; they helped to support the community to create a haven for wildlife and a corridor for migratory species. I’m thinking that reclamation’s been successful, but what’s that brown lump ahead of me? Munkjack.
I could stand here and gaze forever. Ripples in the dense patches of grasses that are rustling and waving in the sunshine are rather like ripples on the water. It’s early in the season for migrating birds, but there are geese feeding in some of the fields, grubbing around in the flat muddy green patches. They are easy to spot from my vantage point on the ridge but I’m not one of the world’s great twitchers; I struggle to identify the different species. On the left hand side of the field were three, or maybe four, small grey-ish geese with short necks. It’s still quite early in October, and I’m not close enough to see the colour of their bills, but I will hazard a guess that they are an advance party of pink-footed geese recently arrived from summer feeding grounds a thousand miles away in Greenland and Iceland. These birds roost out on the Wash but fly inland in small groups to feed on the left-overs from the beet harvest.
Climbing over a stile, I hear honking geese taking to the air over at Snettisham. What a racket! They are twisting and turning like a murmuration, looping around and around? Are they trying to get their bearings? Have they been disturbed? I have more questions than answers as I wonder what they are telling each other with their calls[vi]. There are more geese scattered across the fields but sometimes hard to spot. Canada geese with their black heads and necks standing upright like sentries, Brent geese with their dark bellies. Is avian flu a bit of a menace for our visitors?
We used to go for walks with my grandparents on Saturdays. Granny used to say to us “be quiet, stay still, hold your breath and just listen. What can you hear? Is the grass growing? Are the clouds whispering to you? What’s the wind singing about? It made us pay attention. I spy a muntjac deer grazing up ahead; they prevent regeneration of woodland but there are no trees here. Only the fringes of woodland in the distance. I am reminded of my grandpa searching for perfect blades of grass and trying to teach us how to make whistles by holding them between our thumbs. It didn’t work for me as a little girl, and it doesn’t today. Nothing! Not a peep from my blades of grass – ever.
As I walk across the dune towards the beach to make my return to the car, I collect a little bouquet of dried grass and sedges – brown and crispy at the end of the growing season. Cocksfoot, rye grass, Sea couch, lyme gras, Marram, fescue. My ancient pocket wild flower book[vii] is an absolute star at identifying them all for me when I get home.
And finally, I amble over the top of the dune and the vast, sweeping panorama of the Wash does its usual thing and takes my breath away. The North Norfolk coast has such great beauty. Autumn on the Wash is a birdwatcher’s dream. The tide is going out, the sandy mudflats are spread out in their magnificence, dramatically shining silver in the sunlight. The waders – knot, dunlin, oystercatchers – are filling their bellies or flying low along the tide line. I think I can spot the occasional avocet too, but they are so wonderfully camouflaged for beach living. Thousands and thousands of birds, but I don’t have my binoculars for a proper look. That’s got to be a walk for another day.
Not only birds, but tourists flock to this incredible part of the world and on this clear blue day I’m feeling so, so lucky to live in this amazing place. It’s a wee piece of heaven.
[i] Pretty, J. (2011) The Luminous Coast. Full Circle editions.
[ii] Wild Ken Hill Farm https://wildkenhill.co.uk
[iii] RSPB: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/red-kite
[iv] Devine, J. 29th March 2024 BBC news, Cambridgeshire. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68625322
[v][v] Norfolk Rivers Trust. The River Heacham. Catchment Plan https://norfolkriverstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/River-Heacham-Catchment-Plan.pdf
[vi]Barkham, P (2023. The goose whisperer: flying high with the wild geese of Norfolk. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/28/the-goose-whisperer-flying-high-with-the-wild-geese-of-norfolk
[vii] Walters, M. Wild Flowers (Collins Gem) Paperback
