An aerial view of Wild Ken Hill, a patchwork of habitats between the main A149 coast road an the shores of the Wash
- Credit: Wild Ken Hill
However, the estate is equally keen to show how insects, songbirds, lapwings and predators are thriving on the farmland which covers half the estate and is managed using regenerative practices geared towards soil health and biodiversity.
Springwatch has previously made its home at the RSPB s Minsmere reserve in Suffolk and the Pensthorpe Natural Park near Fakenham.
But Dominic Buscall, project manager at Wild Ken Hill, said the show s decision to be based at the working estate in west Norfolk was a valuable chance to raise the profile of the growing rewilding and regenerative farming movements.
Sam is talking specifically about nightingale habitat but his point is that what is good for one species will benefit all.
Michael Salter, warden of Saxmundham Fishing Club, describes this perfectly at the club’s fishing ponds and conservation area.
The two ponds were dug out from a grubbed up Second World War runway and the area has been allowed to naturally regenerate from the bare clay.
“With reeds in the water, wide hedges and overgrown areas of scrub it’s a haven for wildlife, reed buntings, cormorants, murmurations of starlings, turtle dove and nightingale. Bee orchids, pyramids. You name it, it s here,” he says.
Sam is talking specifically about nightingale habitat but his point is that what is good for one species will benefit all.
Michael Salter, warden of Saxmundham Fishing Club, describes this perfectly at the club’s fishing ponds and conservation area.
The two ponds were dug out from a grubbed up Second World War runway and the area has been allowed to naturally regenerate from the bare clay.
“With reeds in the water, wide hedges and overgrown areas of scrub it’s a haven for wildlife, reed buntings, cormorants, murmurations of starlings, turtle dove and nightingale. Bee orchids, pyramids. You name it, it s here,” he says.
Without them you would have quite a silent and sterile environment. But if you bring animals in, which going back thousands of years would have been totally normal, immediately the whole place begins to burst into life. We know that given time this land will end up with gorse, birch, heather, native grasses and wildflowers, then eventually successional oak will come through and bramble. But the important difference is, because of the animals, it won t just be a woodland, it will be a mosaic. That is the key word. You don t want it to be just one thing, you want a whole host of different things, and you want it at all stages of a lifecycle.
Without them you would have quite a silent and sterile environment. But if you bring animals in, which going back thousands of years would have been totally normal, immediately the whole place begins to burst into life. We know that given time this land will end up with gorse, birch, heather, native grasses and wildflowers, then eventually successional oak will come through and bramble. But the important difference is, because of the animals, it won t just be a woodland, it will be a mosaic. That is the key word. You don t want it to be just one thing, you want a whole host of different things, and you want it at all stages of a lifecycle.