Wetland Wonders - Exploring Avalon Marshes

Woodland Bard this Sunday

This Sunday 27th April Woodland Bard LIVE online 6pm-7pm

In this session we will be exploring the Ogham associated with Gorse and we shall enter into the heart of the tradition as we recite the tales of the Sidhe, the spirits and guardians of the Earth, Sea and Sky.

Avalon Marshes

I have just returned from the Isle of Avalon, a blissful week of nature immersion away from any emails, phones or screens of any kind. A week spent meditating at sacred sites and bird watching at the very special reserves collectively known as Avalon Marshes.

Glastonbury is known as an isle as before the land was drained the wild untamed wetlands covered about a quarter of the British countryside meaning the high hills such as the Tor were islands on an island surrounded by vast swathes of bog, meadow, fen or marsh. These areas rather like the original wild wood, were large areas of wild countryside supporting many species.

This darksome burn, horseback brown
His rollrock high road roaring down
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff- bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitch black, fell-frowning,
It rounds and round despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the bead bonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844-1889

Our wetlands suffered immensely in the enclosure acts of 1750- 1850 as the wild uncultivated areas were seen as an affront to progressive civilisation. The huge commons and wetlands such as the fens were affected and the landless poor suffered.
A poet whose life was intricately linked with the time of the enclosure acts was John Clare, whose poetry implores us to care and love nature:

And long, my dear valleys, long, long may ye flourish,
Though rush-beds and thistles, make most of your pride;
May showers never fail the green’s daisies to nourish,
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side.
Your flat swampy valleys unwholesome may be;
Still, refuse of nature, without her adornings
Ye are as dear as this heart in my bosom to me.

John Clare (1793- 1864)

With one visit to Avalon marshes I am transported to a world of the graceful great white egrets flying across the marsh, the swooping marsh harriers hunting for prey, cormorants spreading their wings out to catch the sun like giant bats reminiscent of the primal reptiles known as Pterodactyls; lapwings, pochard and tufted ducks taking flight against the backdrop of the resonant sound of the booming bittern. Then I spot the Glossy Ibis with its shimmering iridescent green and purple feathers and distinctive curved beak.

Below Marsh Harrier and Great white egret :

Below: Cormorant and Glossy Ibis :

As I arrive I am greeted by a cacophony of birds singing from the woodlands of alder, sallow, oak, birch and willow. The great and blue tits with robins and black caps sing unrestrained while the reed warblers compete with song in the marshes.

All of this reminds me that Britain is a major refuge for winter migrating birds as they especially flock here in extreme winters. The Somerset levels to which these reserves belong to is our largest inland wetland in Britain and has been known to shelter up to 50,000 widgeon and 70,000 lapwings.

I remember nearly forty years ago the little egrets returning to Arne nature reserve in Dorset when I volunteered there at the age of twelve. Even now I remember as if it was yesterday my first experience of Dartford warblers and nightjars at the site of Arne reserve. More recently I was overjoyed to witness an osprey flying over the wetlands of Arundel in West Sussex.

Some species are rising whilst others are in decline due to wider issues but most certainly we are learning to care for these important habitats.

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