• 5 . 73( '* * No TRANSACTIONS A0 'Hy of the NORFOLK & NORWICH NATURALISTS' SOCIETY X»«sts' 9* Volume 44 Part 1 2011 the natural history museum 12 TRANSACTIONS OF THE NORFOLK & NORWICH NATURALISTS' SOCIETY Volume 44 Part 1 201 Published January 201 Editor: S Harrap. Assistant Editor: AR Leech Published by the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists' Society www.nnns.ork.uk ISSN 0375 7226 The Society gratefully acknowledges the support of the Sarnia Trust in the production of the this publication . © Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists' Society 201 2 Charity No. 291604 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. Applications for permission should be addressed to the Secretary (see address see website: www.nnns.org.uk). Figure 2. Deer-park and Castle Rising village 1 588. See Presidential Address p. 3. THE NATURAL MUSEUM Presidential Address delivered to the Society on 1 1 Jan JiEHWT .0 5 MAR 2012 A thousand years of birding in Castle Rigfrjcj 'ANGED Fred Cooke I GENERAL LIBRARY This presentation is a journey back through longer managed for timber as they were time and stems from my two main passions: in the past and are no longer the haunts of 1) a long-term professional interest in bird Nightingales, although this species could populations and their changes over time; be found nesting in the area as little as six 2) my recently acquired interest in local years ago. In the neighbouring parish of history. By examining evidence from docu- North Wootton, an extensive but degraded mentary sources and landscape history, saltmarsh stretches to the Wash and is the it may be possible to know what changes breeding ground of Marsh Harriers, Shel- have occurred in bird populations, not just ducks, Avocets, Redshanks, Reed Buntings in the recent past but over the last thousand and Meadow Pipits. In the winter it is vis- years or more, and I do this through a de- ited by large flocks of Brent Geese, Wigeon, tailed examination of the history of a well- Teal, Pintail, Lapwings, Curlew and Golden documented small village in West Norfolk, Plover. A recent regular visitor is the Little the ancient Borough of Castle Rising. Egret. The River Babingley flows through the northern part of the parish and is home At present, Castle Rising is a village with to Kingfishers, Grey Wagtails and, until a population of around 200 people. It has recently. Mandarin Ducks. In the village it- a variety of habitats, with some arable self, typical village birds such as Jackdaws, farming and much land set aside, predomi- Swifts, Martins nantly for pheasant and partridge. In ad- Swallows and House make their nests, dition to the game-birds introduced there, and there are declining popula- some other traditional farmland birds such tions of House Sparrows and Starlings. as Barn Owl, Yellowhammer, Linnet and If we want to examine the bird life of the Skylark can be found. It has two ancient past in the area, we can: 1) talk to elderly woodlands. Mill Wood and Alder Carr. residents, 2) look at written records from Because much of the underlying geology the past, or 3) examine local landscapes to of the area consists of Sandringham Sands, infer what birds might have been here in heaths were common - the nature reserves earlier times. I use all these approaches and of Dersingham Bog and Roydon Com- below I present some of my conclusions. mon are examples of ancient West Norfolk They may in some cases be speculative but heaths. These locations are the breeding are based on a reasonable knowledge of grounds of Stonechats, Woodlarks, Tree present and past distributions and known Pipits and occasionally Short-eared Owls. habitat preferences. Heaths were once more common in the area and were used by local residents for Because there are many early Cretaceous grazing their livestock, but after common- Sandringham Sand deposits in the area, ers were excluded by the local Lords of the sand-pits are common and have been Manor, many of the heaths have reverted worked from the thirteenth century until to mixed woodland, mostly within the past the middle of the twentieth century. Older 150 years. Goldcrests, Great Spotted Wood- residents remember the nesting Sand Mar- peckers, Blackcaps and Tawny Owls can be tins in the sand-pit opposite the golf-course, found there. The ancient woodlands are no but they no longer nest there. Trans. Norfolk Norwich Nat. Soc. 2011 44(1) 1 Other local records can be found in the A film taken in the late 1960s and donated various books written about Norfolk's to the Castle Rising History Group shows birds - books such as the mid-nineteenth a very different village from that of today. century three volume series Birds of Norfolk Farm animals were common in the fields by Henry Stevenson; B.B. Riviere's book A surrounding the village and the farm in History of the Birds of Norfolk (1930) and the the village was probably still active. Now more recent The Birds of Norfolk by Moss the barn is used to sell bric-a-brac. Pasture Taylor, Michael Seago, Peter Allard and land surrounded the parish and in the early Don Dorling (1999). Other useful references years of the twentieth century Corncrakes are The Historical Atlas of the Breeding Birds would still have been common. of Britain and Ireland 1875-1900 produced by In 1861 an important event occurred in Simon Holloway (1996) and The History of West Norfolk. Sandringham was acquired British Birds by Yalden and Albarella (2009). by the Royal family and for both Edward Also invaluable were the Accounts Books VII (Bertie) and George V, it was widely of the L' Estrange Estate which record the used for its potential for shooting game. Its birds and other objects brought into the use by both these kings is documented in estate kitchens from 1520 onwards; these two books - King Edward VII as a Sportsman are currently stored in the Norfolk Records by A.R.T. Watson (1911) and King George V Office. as a Sportsman by J. Wentworth Day (1935). For the rest of this presentation, I intend to In one of these books, a historian of 1781 go back in time and infer what changes in said 'The woods of Babingley and Wolfer- the bird populations of Castle Rising have ton adjoining to it [Babingley Church] are occurred and give you the evidence for my very valuable and abound in game.' [my conclusions. emphasis]. The area already had a reputa- tion for its game and the eighteenth century One of the major changes, which has oc- Fords of the Manor of Castle Rising used to curred within the life-time of many Norfolk visit the area from their estates in Surrey to naturalists, is that brought on by the mas- participate in the sport. sive changes in agricultural practice since the second world war. This is documented Several interesting bird species were intro- in the graph (Figure 1) which illustrates the duced into the area by the royal family in an decline in farmland birds since 1975. attempt to diversify their shooting oppor- Figure 1. Changes in farmland and other birds 1970 -2010. Nineteen species are included of which twelve are farmland specialists. Data 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 from the British Trust for Ornithology. Year 2 Trans. Norfolk Norwich Nat. Soc. 2011 44(1) e tunities. Red Grouse were introduced and front cover), produced in 1588, shows the successfully bred on at least one occasion at area at that time (a copy is preserved in Dersingham Bog. Quail, Black Grouse and the Norfolk Record Office). It was a Royal Wild Turkeys were also introduced with Chase and had been widely used for fal- a notable lack of success. Perhaps Golden conry and for hunting deer by the Black Pheasant which, although declining, still Prince and Edward III in the fourteenth survive in the area, was introduced at this century during their visits to Castle Rising time. Pheasant pens, where young birds to see Queen Isabella (see below). were reared and released, increased the The outline of the deer-park can still be pheasant population and Red-legged Par- detected on the present-day OS map of the tridges were increasingly replacing Grey village. The landscape must, however, have Partridges in many of the shoots, though been very different in those days and we not those of the Sandringham estate. The know that large oak trees were cut down whole area was widely keepered and rap- there during the Civil War, for the protec- tors and other predators had declined to ex- tion of King's Lynn. It is likely that the area tinction by the latter part of the nineteenth would have been a little like the deer-park century. Kites and Marsh Harriers were al- at Holkham and would also have contained ready extinct, and Hen Harriers, Buzzards Fallow Deer. It would probably be the and Ravens had disappeared by the end of home of birds such as Wryneck and Lesser- the century. Happily, we are now seeing a spotted Woodpecker, both absent from the return of most of these species and Ravens area today. are likely to be a regular Norfolk sight be- fore too long. The park was abandoned in the mid-seven- teenth century and because of the sandy soil Another gamebird which was recorded in became a rabbit warren, with two warreners the area but had disappeared before San- being responsible for managing the rabbits dringham was acquired by the royal family there.