In mid-Spring, I wandered the boardwalks of Cley Marshes, among rustling reedbeds alive with the sound of a thousand hidden birds. It was early morning and the sun was still low in the blueing sky, but as I ambled along, it rose above the reeds and filled the landscape with colour. I felt a whole world waking around me.
I’m not as familiar with reedbeds as I’d like to be and I stopped to spot birds I could hear but not see, and identify those I could see but didn’t know. Hidden from view were reed warblers and buntings, bearded tits and a lone grasshopper warbler that stopped me in my tracks.
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Cetti’s warblers called from nearby trees while curlews, lapwings, herons, geese and ducks circled above. Was a bittern lurking beyond reach? Would it ‘boom’ to let me know where it was? I could scarcely see beyond the curtain of reeds and the giant sky – it was a magical, life-affirming experience.
Cley and Salthouse Marshes cover just over 300ha on the north Norfolk coast. They are managed by Norfolk Wildlife Trust as dedicated habitats for birds that need reeds, shallow pools and scrapes (shallow ponds of fresh water) to live, feed and breed.
Largely hidden among the reeds, a magnificent variety of birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and small mammals uses the marshes. One of these is the European spoonbill, which was extinct for around 400 years before returning to a nearby site to breed in 2010.
The birds aren’t quite breeding on the reserve, but in 2022 they bred on adjacent land and spoonbill chicks were seen for the first time from some of the various hides dotted around the marshes.
Walking through this raucous but largely unseen world, I wondered how sea-level rise would affect those that live there. With its flat, low-lying landscape, north Norfolk is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Less than 50km away, the small village of Happisburgh is falling into the sea, and coastal erosion threatens much of the area.
Already, more frequent and severe storms mean the marshes are more prone to flooding than they have been in the past, and so are threatened by saltwater surging in from the sea. Shingle is a problem, too, with huge amounts dumped onto the marshes by large waves in stormy weather.
Steps have been taken to protect existing habitat. A channel known as the ‘New Cut’ has been excavated to allow for quicker drainage of saltwater, and other measures have been carried out to reprofile freshwater channels to act as hunting grounds for bitterns. A ‘hide on wheels’ has also replaced a hide that was lost during a storm – it can be towed to safety when bad weather is due.
Despite these efforts, it’s thought that, eventually, it will be impossible to contain the seawater flooding into the area and Cley Marshes will revert to saltmarsh, as it was before the area was embanked in the 1600s.
With that in mind, conservationists are creating new freshwater habitats further inland to compensate for their loss on the coast. These include Hickling National Nature Reserve, where flood defences have been moved to help restore natural floodplains. When Cley Marshes eventually reverts to saltmarsh, the new freshwater channels will become tidal creeks.
When the inevitable happens, I wonder which freshwater species will make their way inland, and which will take their place on the reverted saltmarsh. Change is afoot, but I’m glad steps are being taken
to protect this landscape –and those who live in it – now, and for as long as possible.
Top image: ducks and lapwings in flight over Norfolk Wildlife Trust Cley Marshes. Credit: Martin Tosh/Getty Images
