"Say, is there Beauty yet to find?"

The circumstances that brought me to live in Suffolk were entirely fortuitous.  It was not premeditated and frankly I knew almost nothing about this corner of England which lies well off the beaten track.  Since then however I have discovered a number of extraordinary things about my new neighbourhood.

First is something I might well have guessed if I had not discovered it online.  Suffolk Coast and Heaths is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).  It is a remarkably unspoiled landscape with enormous variety.  There are coastal dunes and heaths, extensive wetlands and large areas of forest, including a fair amount of ancient woodland.  There is even a type of landscape I had never heard of before.  A carr is a unique habitat, a sort of waterlogged woodland with its own flora and fauna.  The whole landscape is dissected in several places by deep tidal river estuaries which impede lateral transportation and accentuate the sense of isolation and peacefulness.  The overall effect is of a prewar landscape quite different to the extensively managed environment found in much of East Anglia today.

Comma, a woodland butterfly

The second thing I noticed, almost from the first time I went walking in this district, is the amazing biodiversity.  In any landscape you notice the plants first, they don’t hide from humans, and so it was that I first realized that I was struggling to identify some of the trees and other hedgerow plants.

But after that I began to notice the sheer variety of birds, butterflies, and other species.  Of course part of that is related to the variety of different habitats. If you hope to see woodland birds, wetland birds and sea birds all in the same afternoon, it obviously helps to have woods, marshes and coast in close juxtaposition.  But diversity alone is not enough, those divers landscapes have to be healthy to support a wide range of wildlife.



Swans with cygnets in a dyke

There are six native reptiles in the UK and two of them are now extremely rare.  Yet I have seen an adder, grass snakes and even a common lizard, making three out of a realistically possible four species, all within five miles of my house.  I have also seen a tawny owl and a marsh harrier, as with other birds of prey these are considered bellwether indicators since they sit at the top of the food chain.

Hares, Grey partridges and frogs are so common as to barely warrant mention, yet they are all threatened in other parts of the country.

The next thing I noticed about the countryside here is the wide variety of land use.  I have lived in a farming area for much of my life.  Cereals, sugar beet, oilseed rape, cattle and sheep are as familiar to me as the names on any high street.  But down here you can find all of those ‘crops’, plus, pigs, fruit orchards, potatoes, onions, parsnips cauliflowers and even sunflowers.  There are large areas of managed forest, both coniferous and deciduous, and maybe most important a large amount of uncultivated land including wetlands and coastal heath.

The intellectual leap, and in all honesty it’s not a very big one, is to recognize that these three observations: a beautiful landscape, a healthy and diverse ecology, and varied, relatively low intensity agriculture are all directly related.  Suffolk is known for the quality of its food.  Farming here is as efficient and modern as anywhere.  Yet they produce delicious produce in a manner, and in an environment, which is kind to wildlife and to people alike.    There are lessons here to be exported along with the food.