My Somerset Levels – a special place for birds, by Bron Purkiss

Bron Purkiss is a Trustee of CPRE Somerset and he also runs guided walks on the Somerset Levels for the RSPB and Somerset Wildlife Trust. Bron’s piece below is a great reminder to all of us to use all our senses when we are out in nature….

Walking on the Levels on a cold, crisp January morning I see the bare branches of the silver birch trees standing out against the sky, and the alders still have seeds which the siskin and redpoll feed on in the upper tiers.

Moving on amongst the reed beds I can look out on expanses of water and mud banks and see the beautiful greens of the teal and lapwing as well as the differing turquoise, green and mauve crowns of the mallard drakes glinting in the winter sunshine. I hear the whistling wigeon- an iconic sound of winter. In the ivy at the bottom of some trees I catch a glimpse of a beautiful little goldcrest and a treecreeper clinging to the bottom of a trunk for ten minutes as it warms up in the sun.

I cast my mind forward to the first two weeks of May and know that I will hear the sounds of willow and reed warblers and blackcaps; and the beautiful song of the garden warbler. As I walk out on to the reserve I shall almost certainly hear a male cuckoo calling and, with luck, see hobbies hunting in the sky. Although the sand martins will probably have “moved on ” by then, swifts will still be arriving from Africa. All these and many others will have recently come from the south to join the bitterns which have been booming since late January to attract a mate and mark out a territory.

I am reminded of a phrase of Iolo Williams, who says his Nan often talked to him (in Welsh) of a “place where the soul finds peace.