Spreading its wings

A familiar silhouette catches my eye as we drive down the muddy track that winds between the pools. ‘Harrier’ I call but Dave doesn’t quite catch the bird before it drops back below the treeline. He’s not sure; it could be something else and we stop the car to check. The bird soon reappears, drifting towards us in the early morning light, its wings held in a shallow ‘v’. It is a marsh harrier, long-winged and pale-headed, a young bird and one of only a handful of sightings from this inland site.

The presence of the harrier is an encouraging sign, reflecting a species whose population is increasing and whose breeding range now expanding. There are now more breeding marsh harriers in England than at any other time during the last two centuries but their history has been a mixed one. The marsh harrier seems to have been a familiar sight to the Norfolk naturalists writing in the mid-1800s. Lubbock, for example, writing in 1845, noted how every Norfolk pool of any extent had its pair, but numbers declined rapidly to leave just a single English pair at Horsey in 1911. The following decades saw a small recovery, but it was not until the 1980s that the breeding population began to grow and reached a size where the bird’s future as a breeding species no longer looked precarious.

The return of the marsh harrier to East Anglia has been dramatic, the increasing number of breeding pairs year on year revealing a remarkable change in fortunes. East Anglia has become the stronghold for the species within Britain and it is the Broads and north Norfolk’s coastal grazing marshes that support the greatest numbers. The harriers favour reedbed sites for nesting but have also taken to arable crops, such as wheat and oilseed rape, a preference that has opened up new opportunities for these birds.

I suspect that there might not be a sufficiently large reedbed to attract breeding harriers to the site we work but it is just possible that a pair might give it a go. We know that they breed not far from here and if nothing else we’d expect to see more harriers here over the coming years.

Roost

It will not be long until dusk. The muddy footpath makes progress difficult and lodges in my mind the unsettling suspicion that we will arrive too late and so miss the promised spectacle. We’ve come to Lakenheath Fen, one of our regular haunts, in order to see the growing roost of marsh and hen harriers that has been something of a feature this winter. Although the marsh harriers can be seen here throughout the day, and indeed throughout the year, the hen harriers are a seasonal visitor, arriving on the short winter afternoons shortly before dusk.

The walk out yields up two barn owls and a salvonian grebe, the latter rare inland and the first I have seen in the Brecks. A herd of mute swans, 32 in number and feeding in a pasture, hints at the visiting whooper and bewick’s wintering further out into the fens but our journey today ends here, a small group of us stood on the banked footpath and looking back across the reserve. Off to our left is a larger group of birdwatchers, dutifully gathered at the crane watchpoint, but ours is the better position, shaped by local knowledge and the position of the low winter sun.

Within moments we have our first harriers, two marsh and a single male hen harrier. He is a stunning male, the grey wings readily picked out against the dark of the marsh and the line of trees and shrubs beyond. Soon we pick out others, our counts reaching at least five different individuals. As well as the harriers, there are a perched peregrine, the resident pair of cranes and a passing kestrel. As the light begins to go, so two of the hen harriers continue to hunt, coming closer and closer to where we are standing. The views are breathtaking as the harriers float by on owl-like wings, occasionally checking their buoyant flight to hover over possible prey.

The roost this year is almost certainly the best it has ever been, surpassing the numbers being seen elsewhere within the region and providing a good number of visiting birdwatchers with a fantastic late winter spectacle. This spectacle includes not just the birds but also the fenland landscape and the dramatic late winter sky.

Out on the marsh

It has been a good winter for Rough-legged Buzzards, with three working the grazing marshes that flank the Rivers Waveney and Yare, inland from Yarmouth. It is one of my favourite parts of East Anglia and getting out on the marshes delivers you back into the wild and into the winter realm of these and other birds.

I had not chosen the best of days for my visit but I had been cooped up at home, head down and working, for too long. I needed to clear my thoughts and re-engage with the landscape and its wild creatures; the north coast would be too busy and so the marshes beckoned. Parking at St. Olaves I struck out north through the boatyards and up onto the bank that skirts Fritton Marsh, leading out onto ‘The Island’. A small team of reed cutters were at work, a stack of recently cut reeds the sign of a productive morning and their distant banter matched by the chattering calls of a passing party of Bearded Tits.

It was a good walk out to my chosen viewpoint and, with many stops along the way to scan and watch a mix of waders and wildfowl, I found that I had used up the best of the weather. No sooner had I settled down by the old mill than the darkening clouds released a flurry that moved from sleet to snow and back again. I had banked on these just being showers but right now this was not good weather for seeing buzzards. In fact two of the Rough-legged Buzzards were here but, like me and like a solitary Marsh Harrier, they were hunkered down and sitting out the shower. One was sat on the stout upright of a farm gate, several hundred metres distant; the other, further off to the right, was on the deck. There is very little that looks more miserable than a raptor in the wet and the mood of one of the two birds was not helped by the fact that it was being harassed by some of the local corvids. For the next fifty minutes we sat out the shower and then, gradually, a growing pale band on the horizon gestured at better weather moving in.

The brightening sky brought better viewing conditions. I was able to watch the closer bird, which also sensed the better conditions, as it shook itself and looked around. I didn’t think I would see it take to the air and begin hunting but it did make one short flight in response to the crows. More showers followed, prompting my departure, but I went away with the sense that I had shared something with these birds today.

Front row seat for a Norfolk spectacle

The raised earthen bank at Stubb Mill, Hickling, may seem an unlikely place from which to watch for birds of prey and other wildlife. Scrub, reeds and rough grassland stretch away into the distance and on a cold winter’s afternoon it can all seem rather bleak, not to mention cold. However, at this time of the year the watchpoint provides an excellent opportunity for viewing harriers, merlin and common crane as the birds come in to roost just before dusk. With very little shelter from the elements, the watchpoint is best visited on a bright afternoon. The birds will still arrive in the rain but tend to hunker down quite quickly and, with poor light, there is not much of a spectacle. However, in the good light of a bright December afternoon, you may be spoilt by views of hunting harriers or of merlin and Sparrowhawk mobbing their larger cousins. There is even the chance of seeing a short-eared owl or peregrine.

Most observers tend to arrive an hour or so before dusk but I prefer to arrive well before this. One of the reasons for arriving so early is to be able to watch Chinese water deer in good light. This introduced species has established a sizeable population within the county, centred on the Broads, but seemingly spreading north and west to other sites. Most of the Chinese water deer that I encounter elsewhere within the county are either ones that have been killed in collision with motorcars or are brief glimpses of live individuals disappearing into thick vegetation. Stubb Mill has proved to be one of the best places to get good views of these small deer, perhaps because you are sitting on a bank looking down on the surrounding habitat. Slightly larger in size than a muntjac, the Chinese water deer reminds me of a roe deer in its posture and movements, though smaller in size. First introduced at Woburn Park in the early 1900s, several established populations occur in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk where they favour mixed reedbed and woodland habitats. They are cautious animals and if alarmed will run off, flinging up their hind legs as they go.

Perhaps I have been fortunate in my visits to Stubb Mill. Each time I have been treated to close views of the deer, followed by the spectacle of hen and marsh harriers quartering the ground or loafing about in scrub. These have been accompanied by views of kestrel, sparrowhawk and merlin on virtually every occasion, with the whole afternoon often rounded off by the arrival of the local cranes. Having so many special birds and animals in one place makes this a site that everyone interested in Norfolk’s wildlife should visit at least once.

Master of the reedbeds

Sunday morning found me settled in Dawkes hide, looking north across the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Cley Marshes reserve. It was early enough for the hide to be relatively still and the only other birdwatchers present were a handful of regulars. Judging by the conversation, these ‘old boys’ had been coming here for many years, enjoying the wide range of birds attracted by the reserve’s position on the North Norfolk coast. As I scanned the reed-fringed pools and wet grassland, passing over teal, shoveler, gadwall and resting waders, my gaze settled on the familiar shape of a harrier working the edge of the reeds in search of prey. As the bird turned, the sun caught on the golden cap – a marsh harrier and a real master of East Anglia’s reedbeds.

With a little patience, good views of this wonderful raptor are virtually guaranteed at a number of sites across Norfolk and Suffolk. Yet, the fortunes of this species have undergone dramatic change over the last 200 years. In the early 1800s, the marsh harrier was common across much of Britain and Ireland but widespread persecution led to a rapid and well-documented decline. By the late 1870s the species was restricted to the Norfolk Broads. Over the next thirty years there were a number of failed nesting attempts, the birds falling foul of persecution and the unwelcome attentions of egg collectors, and the ‘last’ recorded nesting attempt was in 1899. It was not until 1921 that a successful attempt was again documented and a recovery of sorts began. With the exception of 1937 and 1940, nesting attempts have been recorded every year since 1928, although there was another decline in breeding numbers in the 1960s. This was attributed to the use of organochlorine pesticides, which hit predatory birds hard because of their position at the top of a contaminated food chain.

Most of the recovery has happened since the mid-1970s and there are now thought to be at least 200 breeding females nationally. Male marsh harriers can form bigamous relationships, so the number of breeding females is the most appropriate unit by which to measure the population. Two important changes in the behaviour of this species may have contributed to the population increase. First is the tendency for some individuals to overwinter here, rather than make a migratory journey south to wintering grounds in southern Europe and Africa. The second change has been for birds to nest away from reedbeds, moving into arable crops, a habit that was first documented in west Norfolk in 1982. The skill of these birds when hunting and the way in which they use the wind to work their way across the ground make them a delight to watch, especially from a comfortable hide in good company.