On the Marsh

by Simon Barnes

  But as the hare grew accustomed to the garden and to the drier half of the marsh – the now dog-free half we bought from Barry all but 12 months back – I was beginning to see a different kind of animal. Not the back end of one running away, nor the humpty shape of a hare pretending to be invisible: but a hare loping at ease, at peace with the world – and by implication, at peace with me. With all of us.

  He had worked out that headlong flight from the humans he shared the place with was uneconomical: burning up energy to no purpose. So he recalibrated his ideas of what constitutes a safe distance; so long as he kept to it, he was content to feed and rest without excitement, and with us in plain view maybe 20 yards off.

  A hare’s vision is a colossal thing. Those enormous golden eyes on the side of its head give it 360-degree spherical vision: he can see danger from above and all around without needing to move his head. So he would crouch nibbling with his back half-turned towards me, knowing exactly where I was and what direction I was moving in. If I approached a yard or so nearer – sometimes inevitable if I was walking the wriggling path around the edge of the marsh – he would rise up on those long limbs and move in what we horsemen called a collected canter – a million miles from the headlong gallop both the hare and I know pretty well – and shift another five yards away. Then he would stop and wait and maybe feed, and if the path took me away or allowed me to keep the same distance, he would remain as he was, aware but not exactly wary. Here was a hare who did not feel the need to go haring off.

  In a small way, he had changed his relationship with humanity. And because we had been looking after the marsh and spending time there, we had changed our relationship with the hare. New limits had been established, new boundaries had been drawn, a new treaty had been recognised. What was obviously true of the hare was more subtly true of many other creatures that lived there. Inside our boundaries, the rules had changed.

  It wasn’t quite the Eden of the painting, when Eve could have stretched out a naked arm to stroke a peacock or a tiger, but the hare was closer than he was six months ago; the other creatures that lived here were often a yard or two closer than they had been when we first took the place on. We came without threat, we walked slowly, we sat quietly. Like Withnail, we meant no harm: and that message had – at least to an extent – got through and been accepted. We felt content and at ease in this small patch of lovely land: it was good, and more than good, that some of the non-human creatures that we shared it with felt ever so slightly the same. So one more line from Withnail to celebrate:

  Here hare here.

  Easy to make too much of this. But when you have shared a place with the hare that stayed, you feel . . . well, you feel that something has been exchanged.

  Morning ride with butterflies. The comma has yet to bring summer to a full stop.

  ‘Chiquitito!’ Ruby implored. ‘Chiquitito, come and talk to us!’

  And the grey whale, apparently responding to Ruby’s voice, came still closer, approaching our small boat in the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California in Mexico. Soon, astonishingly, he was hard up against the side of the boat, and recklessly we leant out and offered pats and strokes to the rubbery skin, while the whale, twice as long as the boat, seemed to get an odd pleasure from this strange moment of contact.

  Eddie liked the story. He had heard several times about the whale that came up to be stroked and the lady who called him chiquitito or little darlin’. I told him again about the whales, and how they actively seek out these encounters in a place where they were once hunted to bloody death, and how it felt to lay hands on such immense creatures of such immense wildness.

  One of the reasons he likes the story is because he likes Abba, especially the songs used in the musical Mamma Mia.

  Chiquitita, you and I know

  How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they’re leaving . . .

  So we sang as much of the song as we could remember. We sang for the whales, for Ruby, for tales and events and creatures of immense wildness. We were out in the marsh, both of us dressed in waterproof tops and waterproof trousers. The rain had eased off, though it was not the sort of weather you would normally choose for a picnic. I had tried to get out of it and, as usual, failed. Eddie was mildly surprised that I should have been anything less than eager to undertake a picnic in the rain.

  The attentive readers will be able to predict what happened next: cheese and tomato sandwiches, baked beans in a jar, fruit and yoghurt in another jar, apple juice, beer. OK? That’s everything. No, you can carry the bag.

  So, game as ever, he swung the bag onto his shoulder and we set off. One of those strange facts of life: it’s always raining harder when you’re indoors than when you step outside. It wasn’t as bad as I feared, but then it hardly ever is. Dusk wasn’t far off. Well of course, it wasn’t: this was, I remembered, the September equinox. But a good hour of light remained, maybe a little longer, despite the cloud. A year ago – a year ago almost to the day – we had learned about our acquisition of the new section of marsh, had listened for bats, had talked about echolocation.

  We sat on our favourite bench and I unpacked the treats. It’s surprising how pleasant it can be, drinking beer in the rain: getting wet on the inside and the outside at the same time. As always, Eddie ate with great concentration. Above us black-headed gulls were flying towards the open water of the flood. Heading north.

  It was then that I was aware of a counter-movement taking place a little lower in the sky. Swallows? No, the shape wasn’t quite right. Then I heard the call, like someone blowing a raspberry, affectionately rather than derisively. House martins then. Half a dozen, no more, a dozen – more than two dozen. Eddie stopped spooning beans to watch as they approached us from the north, circling and circling, spiralling and figure-of-eighting, jinking in the air when one of them found a morsel of aerial plankton to snack on. Southing, southing.

  ‘Where they going, Eddie?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Af—’

  ‘Africa!’

  ‘Yes! Brilliant boy! And that long journey, do you know what it’s called? Mi—’

  ‘Migration!’

  Each time one of those martins jinked, it took on a morsel of protein: a morsel of marsh. A long, long journey: and we had made it the tiniest bit more possible.

  These long-distance migrants’ once-brilliant strategy has made them vulnerable in the shrinking world. They need more than just a few acres to live their lives: they need acres and protein spread out over many thousands of miles. Swallows, swifts and martins: they’d struggled this year. And perhaps will struggle the next and the one after that. Vulnerable.

  Perhaps you think I’m being needlessly glum. If you love wildlife, you know about gloom, know about it with immense precision, but you don’t dwell on it. Neither despair nor mad optimism is much help. It’s about doing what you can to make things a little better.

  Chiffchaff, willow warbler, Cetti’s warbler, whitethroat, blackcap, garden warbler, sedge warbler: they had all bred in and around the marsh in the course of the year. And two pairs of marsh harriers had nested nearby, using the marsh for hunting, and there were certainly young ones fledged. Vulnerable species in a vulnerable world: but there seemed to be some local success here. And the otters, the mysterious otters – they were still about and leaving their secret messages here and there: the occasional spraint on the path, the slide that leads from the bank into the dyke as well maintained as ever. Cindy was making a fine piece of work with swimming otters. Joseph was making music; teaching music too, these days.

  Eddie, the most vulnerable one of us, had moved from the beans jar to the pudding jar. The rain was gentle now: a subtle freckling of the waters of the dyke. Beneath our layers we were still warm enough. No need to hurry. It was getting dark; the house martins, moving on, would soon be roosting somewhere south of us. Perhaps already. Good luck on that long journey.

  What of tomorrow? What of next year? And after
that, what then for the vulnerable?

  What indeed.

  It was time to go in, but then again, it wasn’t. Eddie had slipped into an evening reverie: life around us teeming away, subtly, quietly, eternally. The darkness grew: it seemed to rise up from the ground inch by inch. A small yelp, like someone treading on the paw of a Yorkshire terrier.

  ‘Little owl,’ said Eddie.

  Beneath our feet the world turned and kept turning.

  EPILOGUE

  The Marsh

  Dad saw a deer

  in the distance

  the river

  looked colourful

  and pretty

  I saw a butterfly

  on the beautiful flower

  we saw a barn owl fly

  around the marsh

  the herons

  were chattering

  in the heronry

  I can hear trees

  whooshing

  in the wind

  birds

  are all singing

  the marsh

  full

  of life

  the end

  THE BIRD LIST

  2012–181

  Mute swan

  Pink-footed goose

  Greylag goose

  Canada goose

  Egyptian goose

  Shelduck

  Wigeon

  Gadwall

  Teal

  Mallard

  Shoveler

  Pochard

  Tufted duck

  Goldeneye

  Red-legged partridge

  Grey partridge

  Pheasant

  Cormorant

  Little egret

  Great white egret

  Grey heron

  White stork

  Little grebe

  Red kite

  Marsh harrier

  Hen harrier

  Sparrowhawk

  Buzzard

  Kestrel

  Hobby

  Peregrine

  Moorhen

  Coot

  Crane

  Oystercatcher

  Lapwing

  Snipe

  Woodcock

  Curlew

  Common sandpiper

  Green sandpiper

  Greenshank

  Redshank

  Black-headed gull

  Great black-backed gull

  Common gull

  Lesser black-backed gull

  Herring gull

  Common tern

  Rock dove/feral pigeon

  Stock dove

  Wood pigeon

  Collared dove

  Turtle dove

  Cuckoo

  Barn owl

  Little owl

  Tawny owl

  Swift

  Kingfisher

  Greed woodpecker

  Great spotted woodpecker

  Magpie

  Jay

  Jackdaw

  Rook

  Carrion crow

  Goldcrest

  Blue tit

  Great tit

  Coal tit

  Marsh tit

  Skylark

  Sand martin

  Swallow

  House martin

  Cetti’s warbler

  Long-tailed tit

  Chiffchaff

  Willow warbler

  Blackcap

  Garden warbler

  Lesser whitethroat

  Whitethroat

  Savi’s warbler

  Sedge warbler

  Reed warbler

  Waxwing

  Treecreeper

  Wren

  Starling

  Blackbird

  Fieldfare

  Song thrush

  Redwing

  Mistle thrush

  Robin

  Dunnock

  House sparrow

  Grey wagtail

  Pied wagtail

  Meadow pipit

  Chaffinch

  Brambling

  Greenfinch

  Goldfinch

  Linnet

  Bullfinch

  Reed bunting

  * * *

  1 On 2 January 2019 a flight of seven spoonbills crossed the marsh.

  PLANT LIST

  From survey performed by Norfolk Wildlife Trust, 17 July 2017

  Wild angelica

  Sweet vernal grass

  Fool’s watercress

  Lesser burdock

  False oat-grass

  Daisy

  Downy birch

  Grey willow (sallow)

  White bryony

  Purple small-reed

  Hedge bindweed

  Lesser pond sedge

  Greater tussock sedge

  Knapweed

  Common mouse-ear

  Creeping thistle

  Marsh thistle

  Hazel

  Hawthorn

  Cock’s foot

  Common couch

  Great willowherb

  Hemp acrimony

  Meadowsweet

  Cleavers

  Ground-ivy

  Reed sweet-grass

  Hogweed

  Yorkshire fog

  Hop

  Frogbit

  Iris

  Sharp-flowered rush

  Toad rush

  Compact rush

  Soft rush

  Hard rush

  Blunt-flowered rush

  Meadow vetchling

  Common duckweed

  Least duckweed

  Honeysuckle

  Greater bird’s-foot trefoil

  Yellow loosestrife

  Purple loosestrife

  Black medick

  Watermint

  Water chickweed

  Watercress

  Reed canary-grass

  Common reed

  Ribwort plantain

  Rough meadow-grass

  Silverweed

  Tormentil

  Common fleabane

  Creeping buttercup

  Yellow rattle

  Bramble

  Common sorrel

  Clustered dock

  White willow

  Grey willow

  Elder

  Water figwort

  Ragged-robin

  Bittersweet

  Prickly sow-thistle

  Marsh woundwort

  Hedge woundwort

  Lesser stitchwort

  Dandelion

  Common meadow-rue

  Red clover

  White clover

  Common nettle

  Brooklime

  Pink water-speedwell

  Tufted vetch

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Simon Barnes is the author of many wild volumes, including the bestselling Bad Birdwatcher trilogy. He is a council member of World Land Trust, trustee of Conservation South Luangwa and patron of Save the Rhino. In 2014, he was awarded the Rothschild Medal for services to conservation. He lives in Norfolk with his family and horses, where he manages several acres for wildlife.

  Also by Simon Barnes from Simon & Schuster:

  Epic: In Search of the Soul of Sport

  Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways to Make Nature More Visible

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2019

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Simon Barnes, 2019

  Illustrations and map © Cindy Lee Wright, 2019

  The right of Simon Barnes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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  The author and publishers have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright-holde
rs for permission, and apologise for any omissions or errors in the form of credits given. Corrections may be made to future printings.

  Design and Illustration © James Weston Lewis

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-6849-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-6850-5

  Typeset in Palatino by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY