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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Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-6849-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-6850-5
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