Having a car has opened up a whole new world of possibility when it comes to wildlife. I really wish this wasn’t the case, but after spending years looking at train timetables and obscure bus routes that only ran once every two hours every second Tuesday, having the ability to easily get door to door has been a game changer.
Among the sites that have been on my wishlist for ages was Pensthorpe, a private nature reserve that also has a small set of aviaries. Being the sort of place that sold little bags of food at the entrance to feed the ducks, my expectations on the wildlife-side of things were fairly low – not that there’s anything wrong with places like that, because I certainly bought the duck food and fed a gaggle of extremely fluffy Egyptian geese chicks and it was excellent. But I was to be proven wrong on the nature front, as we were really impressed with the wilder bits of the reserve. I particularly loved whenever the path started skirting the river Yare, which runs through the middle of the reserve- with no banks, the river is allowed to breathe across its natural floodplain, its gin-clear waters packed with aquatic plants.
We had timed our visit to try to hit peak ‘chick period’, because I am basic and my heart melts whenever I see anything small and fluffy. Waders hold the top spot for cutest chicks in my opinion; so you can imagine my face when we went into the small ‘Norfolk’ aviary and saw that their avocets had a tiny chick, complete with outsized feet and a bill with a tiny little upwards bend. The other highlight was the ruffs – a bird that I’d seen in winter, but had never managed to see in their magnificent, over-the-top breeding plumage which makes them all look like some sort of period drama dowager countess. They had a few different males (only the males carry the ruffs), each with a different colour scheme, but I was particularly partial to a black and white striped specimen that gave decidedly distinguished vibes. Is it ‘cheating’ to see these guys in an aviary? Sort of, yes. Does it heighten the appreciation for what’s out there in this little patch of Norfolk we call home? Indubitably.
