Marsh mellow
AN ACCIDENTAL PURCHASE OF EIGHT ACRES OF MARSHLAND LED SIMON BARNES TO A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE WILD AND OF HIS SON EDDIE, WHO HAS DOWN’S SYNDROME
The story so far
We’d lived 14 years in Suffolk and decided it was the right time for a move. Or rather, Cindy my wife did. I was reluctant. But in a story I always like to tell, we went to view a place that might suit. From the garden, I heard the astonishingly loud shout of a Cetti’s warbler. “We’ll take it!” I said. It’s an exaggeration, but not a vast one.
In a separate deal, Cindy bought half a dozen acres of adjoining marsh. Then our neighbours decided that living in so isolated a spot was not for them, and we managed to get another three acres.
Eddie and I heard that this purchase had gone through one evening when everyone else was out. So, to celebrate, we went out on the marsh in the dusk, had a quiet drink – apple juice and beer, guess which was mine – and as it got dark, we listened for bats on the bat detector. Eddie wisely informed me that bats find their food by means of echolocation: and that, more or less on the autumn equinox, became the opening sequence of the book.
We’ve been looking after the marsh for seven years now. We took it on because such places are vulnerable, as the creatures that live in it and on it and over it and underneath it are also vulnerable. When it comes to management, we have done little: a few trees taken down here and there, a few bushes cleared, the dykes dug out.
Simple pleasures
Sometimes I think the greatest pleasure in the marsh are those that come when your eyes are closed. Birdsong is one of the
greatest joys in my life, and the marsh is managed with warblers in mind. Warblers are smallish and tend to hide themselves. They come in subtle oliveybrowny shades and are not easy birds to see. All the colour in their lives is in their voices. Most of the species are only with us for the spring and summer, and their arrival marks the turning of the year: and with it, an awareness of the vast great tottering Heath-Robinson mechanism of the Earth spinning beneath your feet. That’s something you can feel with special intensity out on the marsh, especially with your eyes firmly shut.
My greatest success
Sometimes there are great whoopee moments when some kind of rarity turns up. A few years ago, a flight of four cranes paid a visit, thought hard about landing and then changed their minds and flew on. A couple of months back, six spoonbills flew over: the bird-list for the marsh now stands at a cheering 111. »
“Sometimes there are great whoopee moments when some kind of rarity turns up. A few years ago, a flight of four cranes paid a visit, then flew on”
But perhaps the greatest pleasure of all is the sharing: and time and again that comes back to Eddie and me sitting out there, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in balmy weather, always with the feeling of life going on all around us.
What I’ve learnt
Miracles are not supposed to be commonplace things, but I am able to experience two double-miracles more or less every day. The first is Eddie, who was born with two holes in his heart, and who had open-heart surgery when he was four months old: now strong as a little bull and doing a full day’s work at Clinks Care Farm every week.
The second is the marsh harrier, a bird that went extinct in this country not once, but twice. Almost twice, anyway. They were shot to bits by gamekeepers during the great Victorian persecution of birds of prey, but made a comeback during the First World War, when there were other uses for ammunition and men. Later they were clobbered by pesticides, until in 1971, there was only a single nesting pair in Britain.
These days there are around 400 of them. Two pairs nest pretty close to the marsh, and the birds routinely criss-cross the marsh and hunt over it; it seems to be a piece of territory held in common.
Perhaps the greatest moment of triumph came with the sighting of what was clearly a young marsh harrier, recently fledged – the offspring of one of those breeding pairs. And I was able to think to myself that our marsh – our little scrap of marsh – helped to make that bird.
“Tidiness is not a virtue... If you want any land you control to be lived-in, then fight every instinct for tidiness”
My advice
I’ve learned not to fret too much about management. The marsh is a good deal more scrubbed up with bushes, small trees and brakes of bramble than most conservation organisations would allow on a nature reserve: but more than anything else, the place is managed for warblers and they like the cover. It is pretty wild and it’s used to going its own way and making its own decisions. We shall make further interventions and take out some more of the invading sallows and perhaps clear some areas for orchids, but seeing what happens when the marsh decides things for itself is usually good enough.
Perhaps the most important thing to learn is that tidiness is not a virtue. Tidiness is death. A tidy house is a deserted house, a tidy desk is one where no work takes place, a tidy kitchen is one where no meals are cooked.
We have mania for tidying up open spaces, mowing the grass for no good reason, adding various poisons when there are enough poisons in the world already. We have a euphemism for the untidy house: lived-in. If you want any land you control to be lived-in, then fight every instinct for tidiness.
Perhaps you are worried about what other people will think; or perhaps the air of neglect and the unkempt nature of the place troubles you. The answer is to mow paths through your shaggy lawn. Paths give the message that you’ve done this on purpose and this is still a human-friendly place. Walk here, sit here, lie here and enjoy the life within.