September 20, 2023 • 30 mins
Welcome Home Everybody!
The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening. The first of these is working with a small group of young people from Sidestrand School here in North Norfolk.
Towards the end of 2022 we ran a couple of sessions with this group at Sheringham Park, and at Felbrigg and in these we played listening games, explored the estates on foot, learnt about the wildlife and habitats of the area, and started to explore their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. This episode focuses on a trip the group made to Morston Marsh on the North Norfolk coast to learn about wading birds, the hardy inhabitants of this mysterious and iconic landscape.
LINKS
Riverlands
Morston Quay
Homesounds
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening. The first of these is working with a small group of young people from Sidestrand School here in North Norfolk.
Towards the end of 2022 we ran a couple of sessions with this group at Sheringham Park, and at Felbrigg and in these we played listening games, explored the estates on foot, learnt about the wildlife and habitats of the area, and started to explore their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. This episode focuses on a trip the group made to Morston Marsh on the North Norfolk coast to learn about wading birds, the hardy inhabitants of this mysterious and iconic landscape.
LINKS
Riverlands
Morston Quay
Homesounds
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:26):
Welcome home, everybody, and welcometo the third Home Sound Show. My
name is Martin and I'm a fieldrecordist teacher. I am the creator of
the Home Sounds Project and your cohost for the show along with Rob.
Hello everybody. My name is Roband I'm an educator and naturalist. I
work for the National Trust at SheringhamPark in Norfolk as part of their Children
(00:47):
and Young People Hub. The HomeSound Show invites everyone to become active environmental
listeners. Each month we visit adifferent location in Norfolk, seeking out seasonal
natural sound and focusing on a differenttheme. We also work with the local
school to explore these sounds together andshare our experiences of listening. The Home
(01:10):
Sounds Projects began working with the NationalTrust in the autumn of twenty twenty two
through its Riverlands Project and has installedtwo live streaming microphones at their Felbrig and
Blickling estates. Running alongside these installationsare a series of educational activities encouraging people
to become more active in their environmentallistening. The first of these is working
with a small group of young peoplefrom Sidestround School here in North Norfolk.
(01:37):
In these sessions, we play listeninggames explore on foot, learn about the
wildlife of the area, and tuneinto their acoustic habitats through listening and audio
field recording. For this show,we went to Marston on the North Norfolk
Coast, looking and listening for wadingbirds, in particular curlew redshank, an
oystercatcher. We met in the carpat Morston Key. It was damp,
(02:01):
cold, gray and windy, idealconditions for wandering the boggie, soggy and
exceedingly muddy marshes. So my nameis Rob, you know Martin. This
is Eleanor works for us at theNational Trust. She is an apprentice ranger.
(02:21):
So she's learning how to be aranger. Is that right? Something
lines anyway? Yes, So she'sand she's with us today. We are
at Marston Has anyone been here before? Now? Okay, Marston Key?
It is do you know what keyis? I'm not talking one of these.
(02:43):
It is a place where you cancatch a boat. And so this
is where it's felt differently, Soit's yeah, kind of it's like it's
not kate why, it's q ua y key And it's where you catch
the boats to go to see theseals of Blakeney Point from here, and
(03:04):
it's also a big bit of habitatthat's looked after by the National Trust.
And it is a salt marsh.So anyone been to a salt marsh before,
Harry, No, anybody, Shannon, no idea what I'm talking about?
Okay, okay, okay. Sobasically it's a big area of mud
(03:28):
basically, but niggas flood into it, gets flooded by the sea. But
it's really important for wildlife and it'sparticularly for birds. And so the focus
of the day we are going tobe looking for some birds. And these
birds are wading birds, so they'vegot long beaks and long legs. Why
(03:51):
they stand in the water. Theystand still to try and catch some of
them do that. So that's whatthe long legs. See. You don't
want short legs. You're gonna bestanding in water, do you, because
you're gonna be up to your upto your breast feathers in water. So
long legs is good. By thelong beak, catch catch the fish.
(04:12):
Yeah, Well what they do isnot always fish. Some catch fish,
but mainly little tiny worms and littlecrustaceans that live in mud. And what
they do is they probe around inthe mud with their long beak and that's
how they catch their prey. Andthere are three particular ones that we are
interested in today because it will makedistinctive noises. We've got distinctive calls,
(04:33):
and they've all they all look different, and we'll by the end of the
day we'll be able to identify theseno problem at all. But I'll tell
you their names. First one isthe red shank red shank, and as
the name suggests, it's got redharry red, red red feathers. Well,
it has got a red beak,but it's also got red legs.
(04:56):
Shank is like, oh, thatisn't a red chank. But that's the
second one I was going to talkabout. Okay, so the red shank's
got at the time then but almostperfect a red chant came over. I'd
have been ideal, wouldn't it.But the next bird is this one was
the oyster catcher. Oyster catcher,and they're black and white. Just saw
there. They've also got a redbeak and they make a piping call.
(05:20):
So that's as we as we justsaid, Thank you, Shannon, excellent.
Did you record it? No?Oh my, what we taught you.
Yeah, in fact, we'll havewe'll have plenty of chances to do
this in a little while. Andthe third bird, possibly my favorite of
the three, becoming the rarest one, okay, is it's kind of is
(05:43):
not as brightly colored as the other. It's brown, it's bigger, it's
brown. It's got a long beak. But this beak is is what its
curved down? Perfect? You knowyour do? You know? You know
your curlews, Shannon, because it'sthe early and the curly you has got
a very distinctive call that hopefully we'llhear which kind of it's got a call
(06:05):
that sounds a bit like its nameif you use plenty of imagination, okay,
curly you. So that's the thirdbirds, the three birds, they're
all very vocal and on a lovelyspring day like today. What cold?
It's not a lovely spring day.Lovely it's getting on for it's mid nearly
(06:30):
mid March. But it's absolute winterhas returned, doesn't it. But but
there'll be plenty of birds out inthe marsh, I'm quite sure so.
But the first thing I think we'lldo is just have a look at the
marsh from the wall, because Iknow missus Gilman's has been talking about already.
She only just got out of thebus, so we're not going to
do that first. Does that soundlike a plan? Intrecuidly head out into
(06:53):
the marshes. That's so good.Salt marshes are unique habitats formed by the
rare combination of a high tidal rangeand extremely low wave energy. For example,
behind large expanses of flat sand oran area is protected by coastal features
such as spits or natural bays.Under these conditions, the smallest, lightest
(07:14):
particles of clay can be deposited toform a muddy habitat, which is then
colonized by predictable sequence of salt.Living plants Samford and sea ester help stabilize
the area, promoting further deposition andenabling other vegetation to gain a foothold.
In this way, a salt marshis formed, providing a vital natural area
which supports an array of wildlife.Salt marshes can look barren in the winter
(07:36):
time, but this appearance belies theirnature as an extremely productive habitat. It
is the mud that drives this productivity. Salt marsh mud is very rich in
invertebrate life, hosting an array ofworms, mollusks, and crustaceans that in
turn provide food for wading birds.Waders are present on salt marshes all year
round. They are important wintering placesand provide migration stopovers and breeding sites.
(08:01):
We visited Morston Marshes in early springwith the aim of listening out for the
distinctive piping calls of the special wadingbirds that call Norfolk home, the red
shake, the curlew, and theoystercatcher. Oystercatchers are stoutly built, with
the striking black and white plumage,pink legs, and a hefty red bill.
The thickest heaviest beak of any wader. The oyster catcher's beak deserve special
(08:24):
attention, but its name does not. Oystercatchers do not generally eat oysters,
and their diet is actually largely comprisedof mussels, cockles, crustaceans and marine
worms. Different individual birds tend toselli specialized on different prey items, a
trait known as resource polymorphism, andmales and females also differ, with female
(08:45):
birds sporting longer bills than their malecounterparts. You need the right tool for
the job, and there is morethan more way to catch a mussel.
Studies have shown the oystercatchers fall intotwo categories, with stabbers jabbing their more
flattened bill tip in between the valvesof the shell and then prize apart,
and hammers using a less sophisticated approachof cracking the dome part of the shell
(09:05):
with a punchering blow. Furthermore,some birds are worm specialists, and their
beaks become more tweezerlike for probing andpulling worms from their burrows. Most interestingly
of all, it seems that theapparent specialization is not fixed and birds can
adapt their equipment to suit the conditions. This is largely facilitated by the speedy
(09:26):
growth rate of an oystercatcher's beak,which can length them by a staggering point
four of a millimetre each day,around three times as fast as the growth
rate of human fingernails. In thisway, a dyet in the wool hammerer
of mussels can convert to a delicatetweezer of lugworms in the space of just
ten days. Oystercatchers can be seenin Northolk all year round and breed around
(09:46):
the coast are now increasingly in moreinland situations. In winter, resident burden
UMBs are swelled by birds on passage, with peak numbers occurring in January.
Ringing studies have shown the oystercatchers areexceptionally long lived for wading birds, with
recoveries clocking in in excess of fortyfive years old. Just up from the
(10:07):
car park is the National Trust VisitorsCenter, with the second floor viewing gallery
overlooking the key and giving fantastic viewsacross the marsh to Blakeney Point right,
Okay, so gonna have a goodlookout across the marshes. So there's a
really big area of salt marsh allalong this section of the coast, and
(10:30):
it stretches well from from here atBlakeney kind of you go further east than
that, it's more it's a differentsort of marsh, but here it's the
salt marsh from Blakeney comes right theway across right away along to Wells.
So it's a really big area ofit's been to Wells before. There's a
fish and chips in Wells. Yeah, few people, So it goes right
(10:54):
the way along here. Really importanthabitat lots of wildlife lives on it,
these distinctive bits of there. Therivers that come in here, and there's
lots of them, really are calledcreeks, and at low tide there's no
water in them. They just bearmud, and then as the tide comes
(11:16):
in they fill it with water.And so the creeks allow the boats here
to get out onto the sea,and we can actually see a few of
the birds that we're actually looking forfrom here. I think, so we've
got we get the telescopes that itwill show you, but I can see
it curl you here. In fact, I think is going to get easier
(11:39):
outside. Actually, yeah, ifwe say we're want to come out and
have a look to what we've got, we can and warm up again.
A second red bill wading bird alsofeeds and breeds and salt marshes, though
perhaps its most distinctive body parts areits legs, from whence its name derives.
(12:01):
Red shanks are smaller and dainty thanoister catchers, with a shorter bill
and brown plumage, with a whitestreaked breast and flanks in flight, a
contrasting white wedge shape on their backsand broad white trailing wing edges are diagnostic.
The stout straight bill is red atthe base, and the legs vary
from an orange red to a brightcrimson. The color particularly pronounced in an
(12:22):
adult summer breeding plumage. Red shanksare noisy, wary birds and like to
be the first to take to theair at the sight of an approaching human,
accompanied by their musical whistling alarm call. This salt marsh early warning system
has given them the moniker of theSentinel of the Marsh. Red shank nest
(13:03):
on the ground and breed on saltmarshes, but can also be found nesting
inland on wet grassland. Their dietconsists of small mud living invertebrates, but
switches to earthworms and cranefly larvae awayfrom the coast. Okay, so I
thought, what we do is welisten to extractor reaches three birds and then
(13:26):
talk a little bit about what's thecharacteristic of their calls. Then when we
go out we can try to pickit out from all the other sounds that
you will be hearing identifying. Okay, so this first one is a red
shank, I hope it's kind offight. So how would you describe that
(14:07):
noisy, noisy, sorry, saksqueaky sounds like when they fight. Yeah,
so angry, so short, squeaky, like mice scrapping, kind of
a lot. A lot of thewaging birds have got a kind of whistling
call that tends to carry quite longdistances, And obviously they're out in the
(14:33):
open, off from something quite windyone of the places where they are,
so I guess that helps them communicateif they've got a call that troubles a
long distance as well. How fardistance? Well, good question. You
can live quite a long way off, can't you. You can hear you
can hear hear them calling out onthe marsh has a distance quite a few
(14:56):
hundred meters, I would think,certainly. And on a windy day like
today, it's sounds will be thewind will be carrying the sound to you.
So if you're standing in the sortof the wind's coming towards you,
it sounds more like it comes thewind's going away from you, and the
sound will be traveling in that direction, which is which is a weird thing
to think about. The wind ismoving the sound around. So so that's
(15:18):
the oyster catchup. That's sorry.The redshank This one is the curl you.
That was about you're too tame?So does that typing them too?
(15:46):
Yeah? Like that's how it is. So that's the curl you. That's
the picture of the picture. Really, So how would you describe that sound
you can hear again? Maybe thinkabout how it's different to the first one,
(16:41):
a screaming kettle, like a screamingkettle. Nice description here. Yeah,
it's a bit more varied, abit more, a bit more different
things going on? Anything else?M it is that it's two nuts,
(17:02):
isn't it? That is curly youkind of yeah, that's one of those
birds that's got a name that soundsa little bit like they're care if you
kind of use there is a wordfor that of a well, there's a
(17:23):
word of a word that sounds likeit sounds what it does. That's the
word desperately searching for. I didn'tknow who I could have said that,
but I didn't know whether you weregoing to for a fancy bird word is
(17:47):
a fancy bird word. But wedon't know that either. And the last
one, this is the oyster catchers. That's a sec Yeah, okay,
(18:07):
okay, okay, So what'll likethat one? And how would you describe
(18:33):
that. It's like a wheel issqueaking by to make that one je chip
rather than a squeak speak speak yeah, yes, ju ju ju i,
(19:00):
they're quite off a describe a lotof these blady birds home piping calls,
like you know, play pipe playinga sort of yeah, sort of pipe
kind of flute kind of vibe,and they've got long beats and like the
pipe whistle. I guess I don'twant that helps or not just throwing that
(19:21):
out there. So we've got thered shank, which is the fighting fighting
mice. Understand there's a fighting mice. Mm hmm okay, h yeah,
(19:47):
red shank. That's the red shanksgrapping mice. Could you yah? That's
(20:11):
the cattle. Yeah. And thenwe've got the oyster. Catch up.
It's a squeaky bike, higher pitch, higher pitch from the red shad h
(20:36):
more chip. Finally, the curlyis the largest European wader, possesses an
unmistakable feature in its long and evenlydown curved bill. The plumage is uniformly
(20:56):
streaked and barred gray brown. Yeah. Again. There is a difference between
the sexes, with the female's billoften noticeably longer than the males. Curlers
can be seen year round in Norfolk, with the small and localized breeding population
joined by larger numbers of migrant andwintering birds at other times of the year.
Curly breeding numbers in the uplands ofBritain, which homes around a quarter
(21:18):
of the world population of the species. Despite the UK's importance for curlew,
numbers have declined steeply, with breedingnumbers plummeting by one half in the last
twenty years. Conservation initiatives are underway to attempt to halt the decline,
including working with landowners to help thembetter manage habitats and head starting chicks that
need to be relocated from mod sitessuch as airfields. Curlyers are vocal birds
(21:45):
and have a variety of calls andvocalizations, including the melancholic, fluting two
note call alluded to in the bird'sname Coolly Coolly, which is a general
warning and contact call. Additionally,there is a low whistle or warp call,
(22:14):
often used as a territorial marker,and a longer mellow, bubbling call
or song evocative of spring. Intheir more than strongholds, Curlews feature strongly
(22:41):
in folks or and poetry, andtheir haunting calls and wilderness habitations are used
as a cipher for sorrow and loneliness, and feature in the work of Ted
Hughes, W. B. Yeats, W. H. Hudson and Robbie
Burns. In Irish folk tales,curlews are often seen as a bad omen
or important of poor weather, inthe tail of the Seven Whistlers, a
harbinger of death. The whistlers weresaid to be seven mysterious birds which flew
(23:06):
overhead calling hearing it was a premonitionof disaster and a commonly held belief amongst
nineteenth century seamen and coal miners.Crossing the bridge from the quay onto the
salt marsh proper, you first encounterthe sticky, slippery salt marsh mud brick
(23:33):
jacklo was shot now that three,three or four feeding a mixed creak.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's okay, right, totally. What a lot
of birds? All right? Yeah? Go fill anyone fingers yeah and blue.
(24:23):
Yeah. With the weather deteriorating andthe challenges mounting, we reached a
formidable obstacle, a salt marsh creekcrossable only by a precarious single plank bridge,
(24:45):
So describe it. We've got basically, this is like hom a celebrity
get me out of here type effort. We've got a narrow wooden bridge over
a gaping chasm, and the bridgeis about it's about, well, it's
about and she's wide something like that, and it's quite smithful. So we're
gonna pretty careful. Well, nowthat will be. It's okay. What
(25:15):
I can do. I can getdown in the channel. Who's gonna the
other one? This guy? Soif we want to hold my hand over
the bridge, give me the stickis ptentially dangerous danger miss come on,
(25:41):
come on, I can't trap.I'll tell you what my wealthy spring and
lake this is. This is prettyyour Yeah, I could do. You're
(26:06):
not cat you thing? Why isthis so sad? But you're right good?
You are right? Oh, II don't. If you're born,
(26:41):
that's a good thing, and yougo forward to be lovely next Darcy.
I'm not sure that, Darcy.No, I know you're ok once you
(27:14):
got so much just steady to passyour equipment. Despite the conditions, cold
hands and wet feet, morale remainedhigh throughout. Returning to the lookout for
hot chocolate, and rest was awelcome reward. Oh you're warming up,
(27:44):
so we got what are your cotrobrainboard? Whilst everyone warmed up in the
(28:14):
lookout, I ventured back out ontothe marsh, this time with hydrophones and
a geophone to capture less familiar,though perhaps equally characteristic sounds of this habitat
(28:55):
you've been listening to. Thanks goto the National Trust and the staff and
kits of Sidesland School. If you'dlike to keep listening, look for the
Riverland Show on Popular Radio, whichbroadcasts the sounds of felbrig and Blickling every
Wednesday evening at ten p m.Or you can visit w w W dot
(29:18):
homesounds dot org for more opportunities toactively listen. We'll be back again next
month. Welcome home, everybody,
Welcome home, everybody, and welcometo the third Home Sound Show. My
name is Martin and I'm a fieldrecordist teacher. I am the creator of
the Home Sounds Project and your cohost for the show along with Rob.
Hello everybody. My name is Roband I'm an educator and naturalist. I
work for the National Trust at SheringhamPark in Norfolk as part of their Children
(00:47):
and Young People Hub. The HomeSound Show invites everyone to become active environmental
listeners. Each month we visit adifferent location in Norfolk, seeking out seasonal
natural sound and focusing on a differenttheme. We also work with the local
school to explore these sounds together andshare our experiences of listening. The Home
(01:10):
Sounds Projects began working with the NationalTrust in the autumn of twenty twenty two
through its Riverlands Project and has installedtwo live streaming microphones at their Felbrig and
Blickling estates. Running alongside these installationsare a series of educational activities encouraging people
to become more active in their environmentallistening. The first of these is working
with a small group of young peoplefrom Sidestround School here in North Norfolk.
(01:37):
In these sessions, we play listeninggames explore on foot, learn about the
wildlife of the area, and tuneinto their acoustic habitats through listening and audio
field recording. For this show,we went to Marston on the North Norfolk
Coast, looking and listening for wadingbirds, in particular curlew redshank, an
oystercatcher. We met in the carpat Morston Key. It was damp,
(02:01):
cold, gray and windy, idealconditions for wandering the boggie, soggy and
exceedingly muddy marshes. So my nameis Rob, you know Martin. This
is Eleanor works for us at theNational Trust. She is an apprentice ranger.
(02:21):
So she's learning how to be aranger. Is that right? Something
lines anyway? Yes, So she'sand she's with us today. We are
at Marston Has anyone been here before? Now? Okay, Marston Key?
It is do you know what keyis? I'm not talking one of these.
(02:43):
It is a place where you cancatch a boat. And so this
is where it's felt differently, Soit's yeah, kind of it's like it's
not kate why, it's q ua y key And it's where you catch
the boats to go to see theseals of Blakeney Point from here, and
(03:04):
it's also a big bit of habitatthat's looked after by the National Trust.
And it is a salt marsh.So anyone been to a salt marsh before,
Harry, No, anybody, Shannon, no idea what I'm talking about?
Okay, okay, okay. Sobasically it's a big area of mud
(03:28):
basically, but niggas flood into it, gets flooded by the sea. But
it's really important for wildlife and it'sparticularly for birds. And so the focus
of the day we are going tobe looking for some birds. And these
birds are wading birds, so they'vegot long beaks and long legs. Why
(03:51):
they stand in the water. Theystand still to try and catch some of
them do that. So that's whatthe long legs. See. You don't
want short legs. You're gonna bestanding in water, do you, because
you're gonna be up to your upto your breast feathers in water. So
long legs is good. By thelong beak, catch catch the fish.
(04:12):
Yeah, Well what they do isnot always fish. Some catch fish,
but mainly little tiny worms and littlecrustaceans that live in mud. And what
they do is they probe around inthe mud with their long beak and that's
how they catch their prey. Andthere are three particular ones that we are
interested in today because it will makedistinctive noises. We've got distinctive calls,
(04:33):
and they've all they all look different, and we'll by the end of the
day we'll be able to identify theseno problem at all. But I'll tell
you their names. First one isthe red shank red shank, and as
the name suggests, it's got redharry red, red red feathers. Well,
it has got a red beak,but it's also got red legs.
(04:56):
Shank is like, oh, thatisn't a red chank. But that's the
second one I was going to talkabout. Okay, so the red shank's
got at the time then but almostperfect a red chant came over. I'd
have been ideal, wouldn't it.But the next bird is this one was
the oyster catcher. Oyster catcher,and they're black and white. Just saw
there. They've also got a redbeak and they make a piping call.
(05:20):
So that's as we as we justsaid, Thank you, Shannon, excellent.
Did you record it? No?Oh my, what we taught you.
Yeah, in fact, we'll havewe'll have plenty of chances to do
this in a little while. Andthe third bird, possibly my favorite of
the three, becoming the rarest one, okay, is it's kind of is
(05:43):
not as brightly colored as the other. It's brown, it's bigger, it's
brown. It's got a long beak. But this beak is is what its
curved down? Perfect? You knowyour do? You know? You know
your curlews, Shannon, because it'sthe early and the curly you has got
a very distinctive call that hopefully we'llhear which kind of it's got a call
(06:05):
that sounds a bit like its nameif you use plenty of imagination, okay,
curly you. So that's the thirdbirds, the three birds, they're
all very vocal and on a lovelyspring day like today. What cold?
It's not a lovely spring day.Lovely it's getting on for it's mid nearly
(06:30):
mid March. But it's absolute winterhas returned, doesn't it. But but
there'll be plenty of birds out inthe marsh, I'm quite sure so.
But the first thing I think we'lldo is just have a look at the
marsh from the wall, because Iknow missus Gilman's has been talking about already.
She only just got out of thebus, so we're not going to
do that first. Does that soundlike a plan? Intrecuidly head out into
(06:53):
the marshes. That's so good.Salt marshes are unique habitats formed by the
rare combination of a high tidal rangeand extremely low wave energy. For example,
behind large expanses of flat sand oran area is protected by coastal features
such as spits or natural bays.Under these conditions, the smallest, lightest
(07:14):
particles of clay can be deposited toform a muddy habitat, which is then
colonized by predictable sequence of salt.Living plants Samford and sea ester help stabilize
the area, promoting further deposition andenabling other vegetation to gain a foothold.
In this way, a salt marshis formed, providing a vital natural area
which supports an array of wildlife.Salt marshes can look barren in the winter
(07:36):
time, but this appearance belies theirnature as an extremely productive habitat. It
is the mud that drives this productivity. Salt marsh mud is very rich in
invertebrate life, hosting an array ofworms, mollusks, and crustaceans that in
turn provide food for wading birds.Waders are present on salt marshes all year
round. They are important wintering placesand provide migration stopovers and breeding sites.
(08:01):
We visited Morston Marshes in early springwith the aim of listening out for the
distinctive piping calls of the special wadingbirds that call Norfolk home, the red
shake, the curlew, and theoystercatcher. Oystercatchers are stoutly built, with
the striking black and white plumage,pink legs, and a hefty red bill.
The thickest heaviest beak of any wader. The oyster catcher's beak deserve special
(08:24):
attention, but its name does not. Oystercatchers do not generally eat oysters,
and their diet is actually largely comprisedof mussels, cockles, crustaceans and marine
worms. Different individual birds tend toselli specialized on different prey items, a
trait known as resource polymorphism, andmales and females also differ, with female
(08:45):
birds sporting longer bills than their malecounterparts. You need the right tool for
the job, and there is morethan more way to catch a mussel.
Studies have shown the oystercatchers fall intotwo categories, with stabbers jabbing their more
flattened bill tip in between the valvesof the shell and then prize apart,
and hammers using a less sophisticated approachof cracking the dome part of the shell
(09:05):
with a punchering blow. Furthermore,some birds are worm specialists, and their
beaks become more tweezerlike for probing andpulling worms from their burrows. Most interestingly
of all, it seems that theapparent specialization is not fixed and birds can
adapt their equipment to suit the conditions. This is largely facilitated by the speedy
(09:26):
growth rate of an oystercatcher's beak,which can length them by a staggering point
four of a millimetre each day,around three times as fast as the growth
rate of human fingernails. In thisway, a dyet in the wool hammerer
of mussels can convert to a delicatetweezer of lugworms in the space of just
ten days. Oystercatchers can be seenin Northolk all year round and breed around
(09:46):
the coast are now increasingly in moreinland situations. In winter, resident burden
UMBs are swelled by birds on passage, with peak numbers occurring in January.
Ringing studies have shown the oystercatchers areexceptionally long lived for wading birds, with
recoveries clocking in in excess of fortyfive years old. Just up from the
(10:07):
car park is the National Trust VisitorsCenter, with the second floor viewing gallery
overlooking the key and giving fantastic viewsacross the marsh to Blakeney Point right,
Okay, so gonna have a goodlookout across the marshes. So there's a
really big area of salt marsh allalong this section of the coast, and
(10:30):
it stretches well from from here atBlakeney kind of you go further east than
that, it's more it's a differentsort of marsh, but here it's the
salt marsh from Blakeney comes right theway across right away along to Wells.
So it's a really big area ofit's been to Wells before. There's a
fish and chips in Wells. Yeah, few people, So it goes right
(10:54):
the way along here. Really importanthabitat lots of wildlife lives on it,
these distinctive bits of there. Therivers that come in here, and there's
lots of them, really are calledcreeks, and at low tide there's no
water in them. They just bearmud, and then as the tide comes
(11:16):
in they fill it with water.And so the creeks allow the boats here
to get out onto the sea,and we can actually see a few of
the birds that we're actually looking forfrom here. I think, so we've
got we get the telescopes that itwill show you, but I can see
it curl you here. In fact, I think is going to get easier
(11:39):
outside. Actually, yeah, ifwe say we're want to come out and
have a look to what we've got, we can and warm up again.
A second red bill wading bird alsofeeds and breeds and salt marshes, though
perhaps its most distinctive body parts areits legs, from whence its name derives.
(12:01):
Red shanks are smaller and dainty thanoister catchers, with a shorter bill
and brown plumage, with a whitestreaked breast and flanks in flight, a
contrasting white wedge shape on their backsand broad white trailing wing edges are diagnostic.
The stout straight bill is red atthe base, and the legs vary
from an orange red to a brightcrimson. The color particularly pronounced in an
(12:22):
adult summer breeding plumage. Red shanksare noisy, wary birds and like to
be the first to take to theair at the sight of an approaching human,
accompanied by their musical whistling alarm call. This salt marsh early warning system
has given them the moniker of theSentinel of the Marsh. Red shank nest
(13:03):
on the ground and breed on saltmarshes, but can also be found nesting
inland on wet grassland. Their dietconsists of small mud living invertebrates, but
switches to earthworms and cranefly larvae awayfrom the coast. Okay, so I
thought, what we do is welisten to extractor reaches three birds and then
(13:26):
talk a little bit about what's thecharacteristic of their calls. Then when we
go out we can try to pickit out from all the other sounds that
you will be hearing identifying. Okay, so this first one is a red
shank, I hope it's kind offight. So how would you describe that
(14:07):
noisy, noisy, sorry, saksqueaky sounds like when they fight. Yeah,
so angry, so short, squeaky, like mice scrapping, kind of
a lot. A lot of thewaging birds have got a kind of whistling
call that tends to carry quite longdistances, And obviously they're out in the
(14:33):
open, off from something quite windyone of the places where they are,
so I guess that helps them communicateif they've got a call that troubles a
long distance as well. How fardistance? Well, good question. You
can live quite a long way off, can't you. You can hear you
can hear hear them calling out onthe marsh has a distance quite a few
(14:56):
hundred meters, I would think,certainly. And on a windy day like
today, it's sounds will be thewind will be carrying the sound to you.
So if you're standing in the sortof the wind's coming towards you,
it sounds more like it comes thewind's going away from you, and the
sound will be traveling in that direction, which is which is a weird thing
to think about. The wind ismoving the sound around. So so that's
(15:18):
the oyster catchup. That's sorry.The redshank This one is the curl you.
That was about you're too tame?So does that typing them too?
(15:46):
Yeah? Like that's how it is. So that's the curl you. That's
the picture of the picture. Really, So how would you describe that sound
you can hear again? Maybe thinkabout how it's different to the first one,
(16:41):
a screaming kettle, like a screamingkettle. Nice description here. Yeah,
it's a bit more varied, abit more, a bit more different
things going on? Anything else?M it is that it's two nuts,
(17:02):
isn't it? That is curly youkind of yeah, that's one of those
birds that's got a name that soundsa little bit like they're care if you
kind of use there is a wordfor that of a well, there's a
(17:23):
word of a word that sounds likeit sounds what it does. That's the
word desperately searching for. I didn'tknow who I could have said that,
but I didn't know whether you weregoing to for a fancy bird word is
(17:47):
a fancy bird word. But wedon't know that either. And the last
one, this is the oyster catchers. That's a sec Yeah, okay,
(18:07):
okay, okay, So what'll likethat one? And how would you describe
(18:33):
that. It's like a wheel issqueaking by to make that one je chip
rather than a squeak speak speak yeah, yes, ju ju ju i,
(19:00):
they're quite off a describe a lotof these blady birds home piping calls,
like you know, play pipe playinga sort of yeah, sort of pipe
kind of flute kind of vibe,and they've got long beats and like the
pipe whistle. I guess I don'twant that helps or not just throwing that
(19:21):
out there. So we've got thered shank, which is the fighting fighting
mice. Understand there's a fighting mice. Mm hmm okay, h yeah,
(19:47):
red shank. That's the red shanksgrapping mice. Could you yah? That's
(20:11):
the cattle. Yeah. And thenwe've got the oyster. Catch up.
It's a squeaky bike, higher pitch, higher pitch from the red shad h
(20:36):
more chip. Finally, the curlyis the largest European wader, possesses an
unmistakable feature in its long and evenlydown curved bill. The plumage is uniformly
(20:56):
streaked and barred gray brown. Yeah. Again. There is a difference between
the sexes, with the female's billoften noticeably longer than the males. Curlers
can be seen year round in Norfolk, with the small and localized breeding population
joined by larger numbers of migrant andwintering birds at other times of the year.
Curly breeding numbers in the uplands ofBritain, which homes around a quarter
(21:18):
of the world population of the species. Despite the UK's importance for curlew,
numbers have declined steeply, with breedingnumbers plummeting by one half in the last
twenty years. Conservation initiatives are underway to attempt to halt the decline,
including working with landowners to help thembetter manage habitats and head starting chicks that
need to be relocated from mod sitessuch as airfields. Curlyers are vocal birds
(21:45):
and have a variety of calls andvocalizations, including the melancholic, fluting two
note call alluded to in the bird'sname Coolly Coolly, which is a general
warning and contact call. Additionally,there is a low whistle or warp call,
(22:14):
often used as a territorial marker,and a longer mellow, bubbling call
or song evocative of spring. Intheir more than strongholds, Curlews feature strongly
(22:41):
in folks or and poetry, andtheir haunting calls and wilderness habitations are used
as a cipher for sorrow and loneliness, and feature in the work of Ted
Hughes, W. B. Yeats, W. H. Hudson and Robbie
Burns. In Irish folk tales,curlews are often seen as a bad omen
or important of poor weather, inthe tail of the Seven Whistlers, a
harbinger of death. The whistlers weresaid to be seven mysterious birds which flew
(23:06):
overhead calling hearing it was a premonitionof disaster and a commonly held belief amongst
nineteenth century seamen and coal miners.Crossing the bridge from the quay onto the
salt marsh proper, you first encounterthe sticky, slippery salt marsh mud brick
(23:33):
jacklo was shot now that three,three or four feeding a mixed creak.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's okay, right, totally. What a lot
of birds? All right? Yeah? Go fill anyone fingers yeah and blue.
(24:23):
Yeah. With the weather deteriorating andthe challenges mounting, we reached a
formidable obstacle, a salt marsh creekcrossable only by a precarious single plank bridge,
(24:45):
So describe it. We've got basically, this is like hom a celebrity
get me out of here type effort. We've got a narrow wooden bridge over
a gaping chasm, and the bridgeis about it's about, well, it's
about and she's wide something like that, and it's quite smithful. So we're
gonna pretty careful. Well, nowthat will be. It's okay. What
(25:15):
I can do. I can getdown in the channel. Who's gonna the
other one? This guy? Soif we want to hold my hand over
the bridge, give me the stickis ptentially dangerous danger miss come on,
(25:41):
come on, I can't trap.I'll tell you what my wealthy spring and
lake this is. This is prettyyour Yeah, I could do. You're
(26:06):
not cat you thing? Why isthis so sad? But you're right good?
You are right? Oh, II don't. If you're born,
(26:41):
that's a good thing, and yougo forward to be lovely next Darcy.
I'm not sure that, Darcy.No, I know you're ok once you
(27:14):
got so much just steady to passyour equipment. Despite the conditions, cold
hands and wet feet, morale remainedhigh throughout. Returning to the lookout for
hot chocolate, and rest was awelcome reward. Oh you're warming up,
(27:44):
so we got what are your cotrobrainboard? Whilst everyone warmed up in the
(28:14):
lookout, I ventured back out ontothe marsh, this time with hydrophones and
a geophone to capture less familiar,though perhaps equally characteristic sounds of this habitat
(28:55):
you've been listening to. Thanks goto the National Trust and the staff and
kits of Sidesland School. If you'dlike to keep listening, look for the
Riverland Show on Popular Radio, whichbroadcasts the sounds of felbrig and Blickling every
Wednesday evening at ten p m.Or you can visit w w W dot
(29:18):
homesounds dot org for more opportunities toactively listen. We'll be back again next
month. Welcome home, everybody,
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