Hello! I’m Barry Madden, a volunteer at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen with the reception meet and greet team on alternate Mondays and the events team throughout the year. I’ve been asked to pen a few words every month with news from the welcome hub, bringing to you a round up of the seasonal delights we have on offer, something I’m all too happy to do. By way of introduction, however, it might be as well to provide you with some idea to my involvement with the reserve over the years, and share with you why I think it is such a special place.
I attended an informal training session earlier this month, hosted by Visitor Experience Officer, Isabella; the subject being how best to lead guided walks around the reserve. It’s a great initiative, and one that I’m sure will prove popular. A new monthly guided walk offering a behind the scenes perspective of the reserve, its history, habitat management and species. There were a lot of experienced folks in attendance, so the morning was really about swapping individual perceptions and getting more detailed insight into the mechanics of running the reserve from Matt. As part of the very interesting exchanges, we were furnished with a summary of the early history of the RSPB’s management, penned by the first warden, Mike Blackburn. I should imagine a number of volunteers are familiar with Mike and how the reserve used to look in the initial phases spanning the 1970’s and 80’s. It got me thinking back to how things were then and how the whole reserve has developed over the years to become the wonderful place we all know and love.
My own personal involvement goes back to the early 1970’s (it’s just struck me how old that makes me sound), when me and my fellow rascals would happily trespass on any bit of land we considered likely to host birds and their nests. We had a system of recording nests and their contents, transferring the data first into little notebooks, and thence onto small cards I got produced at mates’ rates from a friend who worked in a printing works. We loved nothing better than to slurp through marshy ground peering into dykes and parting reeds to see what treasures we could discover. We were pretty raw around the edges, but the whole experience sowed seeds of reverence and love with the Yare Valley, its landscape, wildlife and overall feel. And you could feel it; you could feel it in the fresh marshland air caressing our young, unblemished faces as we peddled our bikes along the narrow lanes, feel it in the smells of the damp earth and emerging vegetation, feel it when the breeze rippled the reeds. You can still feel those things now – doesn’t it make you glad to be alive? Here was somewhere you could escape to and be free. Apart from finding Lapwing nests around the meadows near the Pumphouse where Yellow Wagtails and Snipe went about their business, we certainly regularly tramped across the Buckenham and Cantley marshes, mostly unchallenged, but sometimes chatting to friendly marshmen that didn’t seem to mind our scruffy presence too much. ‘Bit tempesty’ one remarked during the sultry heat of a high summer afternoon, something I’ve never heard uttered from any current staff member!
As I grew older, the reserve began to take on more significance as a refuge from the toils of everyday life. The network of paths was pretty much as they are today except the initial trail followed the course of the railway line before turning right and down to Gnarly Oak. I became a Young Ornithologist Club Leader, and every spring we would lead parties of children on their RSPB Sponsored Birdwatching venture. We raised funds to help Mike pump mud from the broad and bought a hide for Surlingham Church Marsh in memory of Ted Elis who had recently passed away. As I started a family of my own, I brought my own son to the reserve so that he could experience nature as close quarters. I fondly recall sitting on a bench with him down by the pond dipping area at the beginning of Sandy wall, and being serenaded by Nightingales while we munched our sandwiches.
When Marsh Harriers began to breed, it was possible to access the reed beds directly from the river bank, so an around the clock vigil was mounted. I remember expressing to Mike my willingness to help with this noble cause, and he promptly said ‘OK, be here at 4.30am Saturday’. I only did it the once.
Over the years I’ve volunteered in a number of ways, mainly in Reception, but also leading evening walks for guides/cub groups, helping out with pond dipping, hosting moth trapping events, and various other crafty activities. It’s all been great fun and immensely satisfying.
To the casual observer, the reserve and its immediate surrounds have changed very little over the last half century. A photograph taken from the area of the old Strumpshaw Tip in 1972, would show very little substantial alteration of the landscape. The essential landmarks are still there, and we have been spared the scourge of unsightly domestic or industrial development. Cantley Beet Factory still belts out plumes of steam during the autumn months, exactly as it did when I did my 5th form school project on sugar refinement, the track down to the Fisherman’s Carpark at Buckenham is still rutted and potholed, and the wide vista of fresh marsh and reed bed still evokes wildness. But of course, in some ways everything has changed. In fact, the very lack of superficial change is visual proof that many important elements of our thinking and attitudes have evolved immeasurably, for without the enlightenment of modern environmentalists, accumulated knowledge of wetland management, the vision to see the need for landscape scale conservation, and any amount of hard work, Strumpshaw Fen would, in all probability, be lost.
I’m proud to be a small part of that heritage, and I know every volunteer and everybody directly connected with the running of the reserve, both past and present, feels the same. It is simply a wonderful place to spend some time and I hope these blogs will help you all celebrate with me the special wildlife and special place we affectionately call Strumpy.
I look forward to bringing you news from the hub, as our summer migrants return, and swallowtails once more take to the wing we are all looking forward to a wildlife filled spring and summer.
If you would like to book a place on the first of our Discover Strumpshaw guided walks, 24 April, then please follow this link: https://events.rspb.org.uk/events/15084