It's summer & you’re on one of Norfolk’s real wide open spaces, it’s great to experience the sheer size of the sky as you wander up from Wickhampton or Halvergate , Brown and Migrant Hawkers announce their presence, wings rattling in the reed, paired Stonechats alight on posts, always a few yards ahead. If you get a chance stand on a ligger and stare hard into the dyke, see that  Jack Pike ? Motionless, just waiting around self assured. Twice I’ve seen a Weasel dragging off Water Voles around these dykes. Look out for Grass snakes as well, curled up in the margins, but don’t try too hard; just amble along and enjoy the feeling of space, squint a bit and imagine you’re  two hundred years back. Grazing marsh and windmills, that’s about it. Not forgetting cows, there’s always plenty of cows to negotiate which just adds to the experience. This is an exciting place for bird watchers, with perfect habitat for breeding waders such as Snipe, Lapwing and Redshank. Stand at the viewing platform, and look out over the pools, there’s hundreds of beautiful birds out here, Shelduck, Teal,  the odd Avocet, maybe even a Little Egret.  There’s always something, but drag the scope along, the place is so big and the birds can be a fair way back from the platform.

In winter it’s cold, very cold, with a winter easterly defying the laws of physics stinging hail and snow into your face at an unfeasible velocity, you could get discouraged !  Bend into it and get out there anyway, take a stove along and make a day of it. There’s awesome numbers of Widgeon, Golden Plover, and occasionally hundreds of Bewick’s swan. If there’s snow on the ground you may see a distant fox, searching for quarry. A lucky man might make out, through the gloom, a distant Peregrine on a gatepost. Real luck would bring a  Short Eared Owl quartering,  wow too close, diving and beating wings to scare you off. I dropped onto one  a while back, huge in the scope field of view, just feet away, downing a rodent of some description. The tail hung there for a while, but it all went down in one eventually, same owl later locked in battle with a Kestrel, way up, they just tumbled out of the sky!

Give ‘Berney’ a try, you might be lucky.

Getting there : Grid ref. TG465055 - Berney Marshes is a few miles west of Great Yarmouth, it’s beauty is that there’s no road access, and it’s a great walk from Wickhampton Church, alternatively try the train, alighting at Berney Arms station, and wander towards the mill. (the big one).

Amenities : Nothing at all, don’t we all feel a little better now!

Need more information :  Call  01603 661662
 

Wilds of Norfolk was set up because of our unquenchable enthusiasm for the Norfolk Broads,  our small part of the natural world. We thought we'd like to try and give something back by helping other people enjoy the countryside and it's wildlife as well as do our own little bit to promote an interest in the natural world and it's conservation , not only for the wildlife but for the sheer exuberance of the precious life we're lucky enough to get the chance to live.

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