I
remember the avocets of Havergate
Island. I remember that late September day and our eyes were gifted
with a crisp and clear Indian summer azure sky and salt sea air filled our lungs. To me it was, and always will be, a hallowed
and special place where you can see wading birds, wildfowl and brown hares gambolling-but not for profit.
Mock me, abuse me, and take my kindness for weakness. I had thought pale as snow Becky
would enjoy coming out for the day and sharing my passion for natural beauty. See the freedom they rejoice in, feel the intensity
of the moment and savour with sounds, scent and soul the glory of that moment.
I tried my best to inspire my lovely. But perhaps I coached and cajoled too effusively
and my twitching binocular hands were eager to spy the elusive and mysterious nightjar, flitting low over the heath. I pointed
to it and gave her my glasses and urged her to listen for the 'churring' from its newfound song post.
That golden place had dunes and marshes that backed along the coastline and further down
towards the south there exists virtually deserted pine forest and sandy heaths.
All round the foxy coast the languid air did swoon and I asked my young princess the question: Isn’t this wonderful?
But although she smiled bravely at my helpful pointers to the species on offer it seemed inexplicable to me that this rare
beauty took no genuine pleasure in the naturally captivating beauty all around us.
It was if she was in competition for my attention. She had to impress and there was no
one of her ilk to woo and preen for. None of her usual canoodling crowd, the peckers and setters of the street and the public
houses-they were all back at their own synthetic turf.
They were the sub-species down the bottom of the food chain in this cycle of life. My vanilla bird had been courted by a far
superior genus and she knew it but she was limited in her talents and acted from instinct. And her instincts, her subliminal
needs were base and unsophisticated.
This fawning wan fledgling fop was resolutely unimpressed by our tracking of this new
habitat as she displayed scant regard for my elucidation on the duneland flora.
My dilettante duchess walked on ahead of me along the dusty dirt track declaring she
had no use for sea kale that is the ancestor of cabbage. She had no use for it all. None. Was I mad? Did I always have to
go on and on about that stuff? ‘Stuff’, indeed. Was I always such a geek?
I held my tongue. We wheeled up and gently along the winding way towards a gaggle of old aged pensioners wrapped as
if foraging into Artic Tundra contrasting starkly with our own loosely clad attire. Bex cast a bemused eye over them as they
brimmed broad smiles through us.
“But isn’t this much better than some smoky old pub?”
All I got was a hurrumph. Am I really so dangerous and corrupting? Is she better off in the company of career criminals when a tender soul such as me has such noble sensibilities
for aesthetic pursuits?
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” was her abrupt reply. It was a Bittern. “Oh,” she
said unremarkably. How do you know that if you can’t see it?
The Bittern, has it’s own unique "booming" sound, don’t you know? No she
didn’t know and why should I expect her to give a flying one about it and so on and on did rattle my acerbic adolescent
angel snake amongst the grass.
I tried to tell her. I tried to teach her that birdcalls often confuse beginners and
experienced birdwatchers alike and she could start by learning the easy ones like chiffchaff and common birds like robins and blackbirds. What’s the point? Why do you get off on all that? I remember
that shrug she gave me then.
I told her she didn’t realise how lucky she was living in a region so resplendent
with outstanding natural beauty. I wanted her to share with me the opportunity to see rare plants and animals some of which
are only found hereabouts. This is wondrous; this is life in its purest essence.
It was quite amazing after all because we saw many butterflies that day including the
Swallowtail. I even saw my first ‘Norfolk Hawker.’ God, that was such a huge dragonfly and it looked pretty damn
frightening. It flew straight at us and Becky shrieked thinking it was a giant bee. But it was harmless.
I took her hand and she yielded to my comfort. That was what she really wanted
from me. And we walked among those secluded places of grazing marshes, reed beds and dykes.
The incident with the Hawker kind of shook her out of herself a bit and she listened
more attentively to what I said about the marsh flowers, insects and birds. Her wet brown deep languid eye pools met my yearning
gaze and I told her sincerely how I had coped with my own stresses by coming here to unwind. Perhaps she, too, could find
inner peace among nature, I was naive. God, I was such a sad, sad deluded dullard.
“In spring, you can watch avocets and marsh harriers or, if really lucky, hear
booming bitterns. Look, down there…on the beach.”
I pointed out to her a special area that was cordoned off to protect nesting little terns.
“Why do you come out here and look at the same thing all the time?”
It’s not the same thing all the time though, I tried to tell her. In autumn and
winter many wading birds and wildfowl visit the reserve. Wasn’t it gorgeous? She stood hands on wide hips looking out
across the reed beds, bubble-butted Becky silhouetted herself majestically against the golden sun and I looked admiringly
but I never touched.
