The gate clonks unreasonably loudly – as inanimate objects tend to do in the dark of 5am. But as the four of us used torches to move through the grassy field and up on to the old railway track, our wellies shushing in the long damp grass, the heavy pre-dawn silence is broken by a single shouty Cetti’s warbler. ‘They’re usually much later risers,’ says Martin, our guide. ‘But this one’s a little oddball. Cetti’s warblers are usually happiest near the river, and they have rather teenager-like habits, not getting up ’til mid-morning. But this one’s moved away from the river to this hedge, and he’s always up and shouting much earlier than any of his neighbours!’
image: CRT
We’re up before (most of) the birds, to enjoy a dawn chorus walk at Bere Marsh Farm, near Blandford. Set on the edge of the Stour floodplain, Bere Marsh Farm was purchased in 1971 by Angela Hughes, a local dairy farmer with a passion for protecting and conserving the natural world. The Stour runs alongside the farm, and the North Dorset Trailway, on the former Somerset & Dorset railway line, crosses the land. There are fields, hedgerows, pockets of woodland, the riverbanks … It is not a pristine wilderness, nor is it neat modern agriculture. Instead, it sits in that more interesting space between use and care.
In 2020, the 92-acre farm was purchased by the Countryside Regeneration Trust (CRT), adding to their nationwide portfolio of 19 farms and properties. It remains a working farm, but uses practices that attempt to reverse the decline in biodiversity and help to tackle climate change.
Image © Alan Wicks
Uncertain, not indifferent
Our dawn walk is led by knowledgeable volunteer Martin Devine, alongside Charlotte Weatherley, the Trust’s Farm Estate and Community Officer. The pace is unhurried, the hushed conversation easy. As we slowly wind along the old railway track and out across meadows, the dawn approaches and things are discovered in fragments – observations, small facts, ways of looking.
‘We talk a lot about what nature gives us,’ Charlotte says, as we pause to listen to an owl in the woodland across the field. ‘But actually, it’s more about how we position ourselves within it, and just allow it to be doing what it’s doing?’
Much of the work at Bere Marsh is about helping people find a way back into nature, as much as it is about farming. Volunteers can carry out bug surveys, build bird boxes and clear hedgerows … but there are also wellbeing sessions, creative workshops using willow grown on site, guided walks … physical, practical ways to access the land.
‘Most people will say “nature matters”,’ says Martin. ‘But far fewer feel able to go out and act on it. It’s not out of indifference – it’s usually uncertainty about what is the right thing to do.’
‘But we know that if you can put names to things, that’s when people start to care,’ Charlotte says. ‘It’s not just “a bird” anymore. It’s a robin, or a mistlethrush or a goldcrest. It’s not just ‘pretty flowers’, it’s celandines and wood anemones. To care enough to protect something, you have to know it first.’
That idea of properly noticing is a quiet thread running through the morning. We’re encouraged to pause and look up. To listen. It’s the simplest kind of activity, and we’re absorbed every step of the way. You don’t need to know every species, name every bird song or understand every habitat. You just need a way in.
We walk through a small woodland where we step carefully to avoid crushing the heavily-scented bluebell carpet, and arrive in a small hidden hillside where the Stour valley reveals itself in a broad misty view, stretching to the ancient Hambledon hill fort.
A robin chases us along a hedgerow, and two blackbirds argue over a corner of a copse. A small heronry is tucked beyond a line of trees, and we watch the herons gliding pterodactyl-like above us as they head to the river for breakfast. Nest boxes, many built by volunteers, are fixed across the farm. A sheet of corrugated metal is gently lifted to reveal a glinting golden slow worm, disgruntled at the intrusion – but thankfully no sign of the stoats which have plagued a couple of the farm’s protective snake spots. Then, we hear the first cuckoo of the year.
Image © Alan Wicks
Not hallowed turf
From both Charlotte and Martin there is a clear sense of stewardship – the farm is shaped by a series of constant, small decisions – what to plant, what to leave, when to intervene and when not to. Staff and volunteers work closely with the local farming cluster, determined that Bere Marsh should not function as a small, isolated reserve. ‘The point is for there to be owls and butterflies and orchids in the land all around us, not just in one small stretch of hallowed turf,’ Charlotte says.
It would be easy to describe Bere Marsh in the language of rewilding, but its backbone remains a modern working farm – commercially viable and productive. But alongside that, it offers an access point into nature.
By the time we loop back towards the starting point, the clear pinpoints of the dawn chorus have softened into background chatter. The blackbirds, presumably, have settled their dispute – or at least postponed it.
At Bere Marsh, nature is not distant or specialist. It is close at hand. It feels clear that the real work here is not only in restoring habitats, but in making it easier for people to feel confident within them.
by Laura Hitchcock
