Related
Recommended
Ian Barthorpe
Volunteer Lou Goom brings us her latest dairy entry
The green leans in. Winter's overhead lattice has become a shady arcade. Muddy margins crack. Irises raise their flags and dragonfly nymphs shin up their rigging, ready to swap their swimsuits for a one-way ticket to a summer of sky.
A Four-spotted Chaser emerges for the first time
Raucous gulls harness the thermals and whirl. I am back to Minsmere for more path clearing, part of a relay team undertaking the Sisyphean struggle to restrain snagging and stinging growth from overwhelming the walkways. The solstice is nearing, and at this time of year brambles can grow over 7cm in a day. 
A bumblebee nectaring on a Bramble flower
I follow the trails, doing my best to balance the access needs of visitors with the residents that have made this encroaching thicket their home. Curled leaves are signs of small wonders within. I put down my shears to pin back a bracken frond filled with stripy spiderlings. I leave a patch of Cleavers where two Cream Tiger Moths are drying the paint on their new wings.
Cream-spot Tiger moth
My path meets the bird ringing station. If you have never seen this, I cannot stress strongly enough how thrilling it is to see the expert handling of such tiny, delicate creatures in person. A dusty blue tit chick, already bearing a ring, is a minuscule Hermia in its outrage at being netted for a second time: for 'though she be but little, she is fierce', furiously ripping at the nail cuticles of the ringer's fingers whilst being deftly weighed, measured and speedily released. The ringer laughs. “If they were bigger, blue tits would be dangerous to handle” he tells me as he lifts a better mannered warbler out of a holding pouch. Bird ringing takes place on Thursdays – why not come?
Blue Tits are feisty little birds
Come to Minsmere. The swallows of your youth are still swaying seas of wild grasses here today. Come to train your binoculars on the drip that follows the dip of a Harrier's talons as it skims the marsh. Come because you are on holiday nearby. Come because you are a local and never have got around to visiting this place of natural wonder on your doorstep. Come as a toddler to safely ferret for minibeasts. Come as a school party for pond dipping. Come as a residential volunteer to launch a career in conservation. Come as a volunteer to repay the time a skylark's lilt was all it took to tilt you in the right direction on a dark day's cliff-edge walk. Come because your mobility scooter can travel the boardwalks, clear of nettles. As the late Kurt Cobain sang - come as you are. But hope to leave a little lighter, and then come back for more. We hope to see you here this summer.
Mullein Moth caterpillar
[All photos by Lou Goom]

  • Touched a button too many...thanks to Lou for lifting my Minsmere spirits again. When we get home the A14 should be reopened for a simple drive and we'll get ourselves over to see the wonders and Whistling Joe in Diggers Alley.

  • I'm at the sea in Alnmouth now and walking the shoreline around from the estuary is so Minsmere in many ways. The swifts in the village, the swallows swooping the village golf course; it helps that the sun is splitting the streets, must be miserable on a cold windy overcast day but the birds will not be deterred.