#681: North Norfolk Landscape and Literature Festival

This has all the makings of a superb weekend. I'm going to attend a few of the events all being well. 

It's been running for a few years now.

The Festival features a whole range of events broadly on the theme of landscape, connected to North Norfolk. This includes art, literature, and field events.

They mostly take place in and around the Norfolk town of Wells next the Sea, including some boat trips on the marshes and a few events outside of the town.

Here's some of the events on Saturday 

There is an exhibition of paintings including some from one of my favourite contemporary artists: Fred Ingrams, who frequently paints in the Fens. I have the catalogue of one of his exhibitions of Fenland paintings which has a great introduction and description of the landscape from Jonathan Meades.

“There’s a real experience behind each of my paintings. They say I have stood in this landscape, been bitten alive by midges, drenched by massive storm clouds. You can’t fake it.”

Fred’s work connects him with the deep history of the landscapes he paints – the strange stories and myths of places that exist on the outside of a world beyond the horizon. 

Spending time in these fragile ecosystems he also sees how threatened they are – by natural processes or well-meant schemes, from crumbling coastlines to drainage to conifer plantations to massive wind farms encroaching into a pristine wilderness.

There are some excellent additional trips running:

• several boat trips through the marshes
• a tour of Holkham Estate including some of the management of the different landscapes that it has 
• exhibitions and poetry

#675: WONDER #2: Heacham

WONDER was launched by Jake Fiennes as part of the work of the Holkham Estate.

Image: Holkham Dunes

It's their strategy for sustainability. I've blogged about the Holkham Estate before.

I've also blogged about his book 'Land Healer', which I think is an excellent book - and should be part of a library of books for those teaching GCSE Natural History. 

The dictionary definition of wonder is ‘a feeling of amazement, admiration or awe, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar.’ 

We believe Holkham is remarkable, somewhere more than a million people visit each year to admire and enjoy. It is also a place vulnerable to the effects of climate change, associated sea level rises and risk of flooding. So, our drive to be more sustainable is a very real one. 

We need to ensure we work towards improving our practices and cherishing our environment for the benefit of future generations. It is by sustainability becoming an instinctive and natural behaviour that we will succeed. 

I think it would make sense to connect with Jake and his work as case studies of land management, habitat restoration and other related themes which are part of the proposed subject content.

I'm going to put together a case study of Holkham - I've already made a start on a StoryMap.

#674: Who owns Norfolk?

I'm going to be using Norfolk as a located example for quite a few elements of the course, including some of the habitats and flora and fauna along with other elements of the subject content. 

I've already started creating some of those. Some of them will take the form of StoryMaps.

Who owns Norfolk? is a valuable website to explore the ownership of land in the county.

Details:

Who Owns Norfolk? This project sought to provide more detailed local landownership data in Norfolk in support of Who Owns England? Particular focus was given to Norfolk's large land estates, and how these were managing their environmental and social responsibilities.

The landownership research started in 2020 and concluded in 2024. Part way through the project, due to time and resource constraints, it shifted to focusing on the West Norfolk district only. At the time of its conclusion, the project had mapped the owners of 70% of West Norfolk's land area.

From 2024 onwards, the project is seeking to map the areas of Norfolk that have been protected for nature - see Rewilding Norfolk.

#607: Sand Dunes

I've previously posted about Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts videos.

This one on Sand Dunes was filmed at Holkham beach.

Format and contents of the video:

• How wind speed affects sand movement and accumulation 
• The role of pioneer plants in trapping and stabilising sand 
• How marram grass structures and strengthens dunes through rhizome networks 
• The succession of dunes from bare sand to woodland 
• The effects of human disturbance and coastal management 
• How natural dynamics — storms, floods, and fencing — continue to shape dune systems today

Thanks to Jake Fiennes of the Holkham Estate for making this possible and explaining the history.

This is a place that we used to visit for many years when I was Head of Geography at a school in King's Lynn.

I am developing a resource on the Holkham Estate for possible use as a case study by teachers, including reference to their WONDER strategy.

#600: Spoonbill Cam

“By making the best use of technology, we are able to bring unseen nature directly into people’s homes, allowing them to witness the secret lives of some of our most iconic wetland birds. Following a wide range of species through the breeding season promises to provide truly compelling viewing.”

Jake Fiennes

Holkham Estate, and the work of Jake Fiennes (as featured in his book 'Land Healer') will be the focus for a resource that I'm planning as part of a suite of resources to support teachers when the draft specification launches.

The estate has a range of habitats and some of those have webcams to track the wildlife.

This one is a first: a spoonbill cam.

#376: WONDER - Holkham Estate

WONDER is the name given to the sustainability strategy of the Holkham Estate.

It is the result of work by Jake Fiennes and others and is kindly shared on the webpage linked to above. All country estates require careful management, and some have the extra dynamic of large numbers of visitors to manage.

The place for biodiversity depends on the decisions made by landowners and Jake has been very transparent about the way that he leaves space for nature and his book which I have a copy of: 'Land Healer' tells the full picture.

Havell, Robert, 1769-1832, A series of picturesque views of noblemen's & gentlemen's seats : with historical and descriptive accounts of each subject / , London : Published July 1, 1823 by R. Havell, Chapel Strt. Tottenham Cout Road, 1823..

Public Domain.

Source: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:3335973

Jake Fiennes is the Director of Conservation for the Holkham Estate at the moment, and I have posted separately on the blog about his book 'Land Healer'

A history of the Parish.

You can also check out their other work on the Holkham Estate.

Education programmes for Geography

Coastal Processes and Management – discover the impact of coastal processes has on landscape at Wells and Holkham. Learn what Shoreline Management Plans are in place and at what cost. What does the future have in store?

Stiffkey River Study – access the River Stiffkey safely and conduct fieldwork techniques to discover how fluvial processes affect velocity, depth, wetted perimeter and gradient.

Sand Dune Succession – undertake practical fieldwork collecting both abiotic and biotic data of an example of Primary Succession along a transect from embryo dunes into the pine woodland. Measurements include slope gradient, soil analysis, species diversity and abundance.

Conservation Management – with nearly a million visitors a year, how do we manage Holkham National Nature Reserve? Learn how higher level stewardship and tourism fund this unique work, protecting wildlife for future generations.

Business, Leisure and Tourism – tourism now accounts for over 70% of the estate’s income. Take a look at the operational side of the business, Holkham Enterprises, which hosts 200,000 visitors to the park each year. Marketing, catering, event management, customer service and retail are all key to this diversification success.

It's important that those who are planning on teaching the new specification start to look for examples of managing the landscape like this.

#105: Natural History Reading List #8: Land Healer: How farming can save Britain's countryside

Relatively new in my library is the paperback version of a book by Jake Fiennes, who is currently Head of Conservation on the 25000 acre Holkham Estate in North Norfolk.

This article in The Guardian says a little more about Jake and his work.

It describes the work that has been carried out at Holkham, and the earlier work that taught Fiennes the methods that he is now using. I used to be a regular visitor to the Holkham Estate when a relative owned a caravan which was located there, but he sadly sold out.

This previous article from December 2021 explores some of his conservation work on the coastal marshes on the Holkham Estate.

He has also been profiled in 'The New Yorker'. Limited viewing possible.

The book explores some of the projects that Jake has instigated, and makes suggestions for how farming can make a difference in a positive way. It provides a hopeful message for the way that farming could be - sadly the Government and those in charge of the crucial departments aren't listening to the right people it seems.

#99: The sound of autumn in Norfolk

They are back. I passed some in the fields near to Docking at the end of last week, and heard them for the first time near to Holme next the Sea. 

Pink-footed Goose
Anser brachyrhynchus

The pink-footed geese are back in Norfolk from their migration. Their noise is part of the atmosphere of autumn and when I lived in Snettisham for twelve years I would frequently stand outside my house staring up as skein after skein headed back out to the marshes for the night before coming inland to graze in the local fields. The numbers have been impacted by changes in farming methods, particularly with regards to the cropping of sugar beet.

Feathers via Featherbase.

The geese are juse one of the species mentioned in Nick Acheson's excellent book on geese in Norfolk.

The Meaning of Geese is the story of Nick Acheson's love for the land in which he was born and raised and for the wild geese that fill it with sound and spectacle every winter. During a time when many of us faced the prospect of little work or human contact, renowned naturalist Nick Acheson found a sense of peace and purpose in his pursuit of the wild geese that filled the Norfolk skies on their seasonal visits from Iceland and Siberia.

In The Meaning of Geese Nick recounts these adventures, starting with the dramatic arrival of the pinkfeet and brent geese as they land in the thousands in Britain each autumn. Over seven months he cycles 1,200 miles - the exact length of the pinkfeet's migration to Iceland, while encountering rarer geese, including Russian white-fronts, barnacle geese and an extremely unusual grey-bellied brant, a bird he had dreamt of seeing since thumbing his mother's copy of Peter Scott's field guide as a child. Nick keeps a diary of his sightings as well as the stories he discovers through the community of people, past and present, who love the geese and are working to protect their future.

Top image: Pink-footed geese over Snettisham, Norfolk - Winter 2009 - by Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

Update October 2023

Read Nick's piece in the latest Big Issue. A warning to us ...

#77: Saltmarsh App

Saltmarshes are an interesting ecosystem and the UK has quite a few of them.

There is a Saltmarsh app available to download.

It is a citizen science app inviting people to submit surveys.

It has a useful section which shows saltmarsh plants to help identify them. This will be helpful for anyone going on, or preparing for a field visit to a saltmarsh.

When I taught 'A' level geography in a previous school in West Norfolk, we used to have an annual trip to the coast for fieldwork. I think those schools who would beable to get to a saltmarsh should consider visiting one. 

There is a good opportunity to test a whole range of fieldwork skills in these environments, and they carry a range of risks to assess as well.

The website, from which the app can be downloaded has a useful guide to saltmarshes.

You can identify the locations of your nearest Saltmarsh using the MAGiC app (see the separate posts on this interactive map to see how it works). I've added the layer below and zoomed into the area of the Wash.