Volunteer Diary 2

21 Feb 2024

Guest blog by Lou Goom, Volunteer Hide Cleaner

It is 13 February and the race is on to finish ground clearance close to breeding sites. Soon these critical spots will fill with nests and fawns and burrows. Having been rained on until I was rained off the week before, I am back to clear the parking and pathway areas of spiky growth that could snag on visitors' clothes.

Two Marsh Harriers circle above, their stereo mewing ebbs and flows with the wind's direction. I hear the husky, rusty-hinge call of a Bullfinch from trees near the patch of Brambles I'm lopping. Comedic little harlequin Blue Tits chatter and dangle as they pick amongst catkins and buds overhead.

Blue Tit by Steve Everett

Wheeling a barrow into a seemingly empty clearing to dispose of my prickly trimmings, I intrude on a cluster of plump hen Pheasants. Their dowdy shoulders are glossy and flecked with amethyst in the weak winter sunshine. They are preparing for motherhood - stocking up on fat reserves and putting their best feathers forward for the March breeding season. There's plenty of other places to hide my cut brambles - I turn away; their curious eyes follow me until I reach a safe distance.

A camouflaged female Pheasant by Ian Barthorpe

A manager passes, and reminds me to come in for hot drinks and rests next time. Time has passed fast, and it's already the end of the day. I pick thorns out of my gloves, and burs from my hat, to keep them off the car seat. Driving out, I stop for a better view... I can't believe I'd missed it before! Anyone who's loved Henry David Thoreau's 'Walden' could not stop their heart missing a beat at the first sight of it, perched in the treetops. I will be back in two weeks, and if I can, I will be sure to take a break up there, to see the uppermost branches spring into leaf, with a bird's eye view, from the Canopy Hide.

'We need the tonic of wildness—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest'

- Thoreau's vision, of a place where man and wilderness could co-exist for the benefit of all, dreamed of back in the spring of 1854, stands on stilts right here, in Minsmere 2024.

Melbro 2 months ago

And thank you once again. Serenity in prose, delightful. My only doubtful comment would be don't hold out much for the canopy. I've stayed on holiday in Minsmere and tried the canopy hide at all hours and the most fun was once with the grandsons. After one fruitless time in the canopy I crossed over to the kitchen of the Coach House and there in plain view were masses of deer, idly grazing awaiting this photographer. Mind at stupid o'clock in the morning, the deer cries can be unnerving and the canopy above them could be a very different proposition. I wish you luck and thank you again.
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