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A Country Year - Snow on the Marshes.

January 1st to January 18th

From the Eastern Evening News A. Patterson (1893) - Everywhere is white with the mantle of snow of winter. The north-east wind blows keenly across the troubled ocean, turning over and flinging spitefully upon the bare, snow-patched sands the white-tipped billows made whiter than usual, perhaps, by the dark waters behind and under them and by the darkened sky overhead. Over the undulating sandhills, now denuded of the familiar yellow bed straw, the sea holly, the beach convolvulus, and the purple sea rocket, it sweeps, scarcely moving, save here and there in a sheltered hollow, the snow and drift sand which are hardening together, to the dismay of the few snow buntings, hungrily progging for the scattered seeds, which if unfound by them, will take root in the merry springtime and re-clothe the barren dunes with their pretty flowers of yellow and blue and purple and pink. The dried and brittle marrum grass and sand grass is bent over or broken by an accumulation of snow.

How the wind whistles through the rugged firs which line the road on either side on our left. The chaffinch and the "greenie" are at their wits' ends, and fly, and settle, and fly again as we disturb them in their almost vain hunt for a breakfast. A blackbird hurries nervously by, and a couple of titlarks spring out with peepy cries from under an overhanging ditch bank. A hungry rook disconsolately winnows himself along over the inhospitable marsh, for the wireworm and the grub are far below the snow which covers the iron soil, safe and snug from the frost-nip or the nip of those strong black mandibles. The surface of the Broad is frozen hard as concrete, and the sere, ghostly remnants of last year's crop of reeds rattle against each other until but the bare stalks, like a vast army of yellow wires, point their tuftless tops skywards.

The marshes stretch out one vast unbroken sheet of white for miles in front of us; and the rough, gaunt stiles which mount the river-bank, where the ditches cannot climb, or which dot their limits in the distance, look more rugged still as the topping of the piled-up flakes sets out in bold relief their dark gnarled timbers. Save for a miserable horse thoughtlessly turned out here and there, the whole outlook seems deserted; but for a few lads gliding up and down upon some frozen "deeks" - lifeless. Even the pewit has betaken himself to the salt marshes in a county or two farther south, and his familiar note is wanting, for the worm does not come up for his nightly sprawl and amorous gossip.

How fare the poor birds in this dreary season of snowtime which remain with us? Badly enough, poor rogues. Let us tramp round whither we have been surveying, and watch for their goings and comings. We have not yet cleared the precincts of the town ere we meet with some hungry fraternity. A half-dozen puffy, shrewd little town sparrows are scattering some refuge in the roadway hoping to find a few undigested oats or hay seeds, and for once without the usual squabble, for one "touch of nature" seems to make the whole sparrow world kin. Life is too serious just now to allow even a margin of time for riot, for the days are short and the nights are long, and food is none too plentiful in the finding. See! One of them has espied a bit of bread crust, dropped or thrown away perhaps by some dainty urchin plodding off to school. Away flies our pert sparrow, with the hungry crew close at his heals, for it is "share and share alike" in these days, and selfishness won't do at all, they'd rather steal it from between them than that he should appropriate the whole. A row of dark tails may be seen peeping out in a line above the snow accumulated in yon spouting, and a miniature snowfall announces the fact of a division of the spoil.

A Country Year - Snow on the Marshes.

January 1st to January 18th

Yon thrush, how tame is he? He would have scorned to let us come within a stone's throw in sunnier days; he is humbled enough now, poor fellow, to hop into our garden patches in a forlorn hope of finding an odd snail or two hidden behind the flower pots piled in a heap up the corner. How eagerly he snaps up the few potato crumbs that have been thoughtfully thrown out "for the birdies" who care to venture to pick them up. That well-known chiry-chiry! denotes the proximity of a blue tit. There he is on yonder rosebush! Very little that is eatable in the shape of a tiny grub or larva will escape his keen-sighted beads of eyes. But surely there is nothing he can find in such a bunch of twigs? Ah! that's his game; he has been dodging round until just below the window-sill; a dormant spider has caught his bright eye and yet another. A momentary flutter, and he has picked them both from their snug, downy retreats.

Along the scanty weeded margin of the incoming tide some small grey birds are nimbly running: now one trots in advance of the others; it stops, picks up some morsel, and then runs again. Now another, and another speeds along, head to wind, and acts in precisely similar way. Even these are not so wary as is their wont in finer weather, for they seem scarcely to pay heed to us as we crunch along on the froth-covered shingle. One now utters a warning note, for his suspicions are aroused. Now they have given over hunting, and are watching our movements. Our intentions have become doubtful. Up they fly at length, and laboriously battle against the wind; they make slow progress for the first few yards. Presently they wheel to the right, and, closing in a compact wedge-form, glide below the level of the breakers, which shield them somewhat from the wind. Now they mount above them, suddenly sweep out seawards, give a right turn, and then dash away southward. We lose sight of them for a moment, and again catch a glimpse some hundreds of yards away down the beach behind us, as their white underwings momentarily come into view. Down they drop simultaneously, and begin feeding and running as before.

How the beautiful gulls sweep hither and thither along the very trough of the sea, searching with hungry eyes for floating refuse, which certainly cannot be any too plentiful at this season of the year. Their pearl backs and pure white heads and breasts and tails, against which contrast strongly their sealing-wax-like feet of red, identify them at once as the "black-heads" so familiar in the Broadland districts in the warmer months. The ploughman is idle, for the 'share will not cleave the frost-locked land, and the "blackhead's" feast of fat red earthworms has come to an end. He must needs seek food elsewhere, and of another sort, be it a floating Sea-mouse, Anemone, crustacean, or carrion. Here and there a great "grey" gull, or a saddleback in maturer plumage, comes winnowing along, and a herring gull, with yellow and red mandibles, shows up with black tipped pinions. That dark point-tailed, gull-like creature is a skua. Nothing but boisterous weather sends him hither. Some tell us the sea birds revel in the wild rough winds. We beg to differ; they may seem less agile and noisy in the calm, and we question not they earn an easier livelihood then. Certainly they dislike snowtime, for even if it benumbs them not it evidently makes them hungry, and they loose the struggle for existence hat cunning and self-preservative distrust, which at other times, seems so natural to them, and is so good a safeguard against surprise and destruction. How restless they become as the sky thickens and darkens, and how they hung the shore, as the snowflakes begin, now lightly, then thickly, to fall.

A Country Year - Snow on the Marshes.

January 1st to January 18th

As we trudge on and on, we disturb a grey plover, which laggardly flits by us, and so near that we sight the black legs, and even catch the "light" in his big dark eye. He even answers to our imitation of his note, and wheels round us two or three times before detecting the fraud. We also put up a trio of now almost white sanderlings, and another flock of "stints" or dunlins.

Far out at sea a number of black objects float upon the troubled waters, bobbing up and down with the waves like so many miniature ships at anchor. They are scoter-ducks. Every winter a host of them "lay" off our Norfolk coast. They dive for their living, which consists chiefly of molluscs, and possibly they are not above making a meal off spider crabs, certain species of which (Hyex) come into shallows in the winter time. Some mottled ducks we discern beyond them are evidently shelducks. How restlessly some are now winging their way in the very teeth of the wind. They always grow fidgety as a snowstorm is coming on.

The snow begins to fall again. Let us away across the Denes, and make for the river walls. Scarcely anything can we see as we shuffle along with our backs to the pelting storm. As we near some brackish ditches, after stumbling over the few furze bushes yet remaining, the unmistakeable bleat of a snipe is heard. He has been feeding upon buried larvae in the yet soft mud. A water-rail - stranger generally in this locality - scuttles along above the surface, with trailing feet, and a redbreast perches on a rail-stump just within sight. How saucily he throws up his red breast, chinks his well-known notes, and is off while we are yet conjuring up what emotion or humour has possession of him. A tiny Jenny wren grates her notes in a melancholy way from the top of a furze spray overlooking the ditch, and a few fieldfares are flying in bewildered flight above head, as we can tell by the notes they are uttering.

From under our feet a poor starved-out redwing flutters, and then drops again exhausted. It is past feeding, and if it were not we could find nothing to feed it, for the worms are gone, and all the carelessly screened chrysalides have been snapped up, and the hawthorns are denuded of berries. The chaffinches are still haunting the fir trees, and the gold crested wren - smallest of the British birds - has turned up in the same locality: the first are starving, but the other seems cheerful enough, dodging round and round for hidden insects with some apparent show of success.

As we near the riverside a small bunch of starlings darts up from the the muddy margin, and a wild duck of some sort, possibly a scaup, springs up from the river, and disappears over the other bank. A golden plover is heard somewhere on the snow-covered marshes. But the snow is falling faster and thicker yet, shutting out every living thing from view. We will make the best of our way homewards, but may take another stroll round here when the ice and snow have melted into puddles, and the rigid soil has softened into mire. While snowtime lasts the coots will remain banished from the Broads, to glean a scant subsistence on the sea and in tidal waters, the moorhen will hang on the skirts of the farmyard, and the omnivorous Royston crow will hunt for the wounded fowl and stricken shorebird. The grebe is down south, ready to come back in the spring, and the warblers - where are they? Safe enough, with the swallow tribes, round the shores of the sunny Mediterranean! Many species yet remain with us, and several others are putting in an appearance from yet more dismal shores, such as the swan and the brent goose, and while these fare badly, hundreds of the tinier ones will starve and die. The broad white mantle shuts from their hungry little mandibles the food they vainly strive to seek.

A Country Year - Snow on the Marshes.

January 1st to January 18th

From the Eastern Daily Press Last C. Farman, Haddiscoe (1897) - We have congratulated ourselves many times during winter months on the absence of frost and snow and every day we prophesied and conjured up in our minds we should escape scot free from these unpleasant visitors. However, our hopes are blighted, and if not actually nipped in the bud, the shoot was not allowed to spread to a very long range.

On Sunday morn we leave the snaps and cracks of the willow log which glowed brightly on the old-fashioned stove, and poke our head through the open doorway of Honeysuckle Cottage. Ugh! how the wind cuts; you might almost swear it was made in Sheffield. The huge yellow white clouds in the north-east look wild and angry, and seem to vow vengeance against the recent fine weather we have been enjoying so much. Scarcely have we set a foot outside our domicile when we are pelted unmercifully with snow and hail, that later making our ears tingle.

Here in the front garden are the usual flock of sparrows. One of these, an old cock bird, carries white wings. We know this gentleman right well; have seen him many times, and trust no prowling Nimrod will destroy him for the sake of those white pinions. Perched upon the top of a close cut fence sits a solitary thrush with ruffled feathers meditating the prospects of a thaw. The church bells ring out, seemingly inviting us to a seat in the old Norman structure. Under the thatch of a dwelling-house hangs a blue tit, topsy turvy, a position much indulged in by this species. Mr. Blue Tit will quickly awaken them out of their reverie. We leave him to proceed with his business.

Rounding the corner a grand view presents itself beneath us. Stretching away as far as the eye can penetrate lay the marshland, now covered as with some huge white tablecloth, its whiteness broken only by the dark coloured watermills, dotted about like sentinels on this dreary waste. A dozen large black back gulls are making across the marsh, probably blown inland by the terrific blizzard, which has also blown away our lapwings and plovers. Not one is to be seen, and they will not return again until the weather prove more suitable for their own particular comfort. The strong easterly wind has filled many of our roads with drifting snow, which sifts through every little crevice in the hedgerows like flour through a mill spout, twirling and winding about into every conceivable shape and form, and quickly producing a picture beyond anything that could come from a human hand. Every bramble and tiny twig is heavily laden with large snow rings. They wriggle in the breeze as if anxious to shake off their uninvited guest, but without success, for Jack Frost has firmly sealed them till his great enemy old Sol shall peep out and loose their fetters and let the captives free.

We catch the sound of the Redwings' "weep." A couple of these hie their way to the Rectory plantation to search for food, shelter, and warmth. On the pasture adjoining the road a large flock of sheep are scraping away the snow for the purpose of finding what little of last summer's herbage yet remains. At the same time they carry a number of starling on their snow-covered backs. One of the woolly ones stands with head erect, with one of the starling perched upon the bridge of his nose.

With this pinch of winter, the fieldfares have left the marshland and taken to the holly bushes and strewn the snow-covered ground with berries which remain untouched till they have either eaten or thrown down every scarlet berry from the tree. Then hunger induces them to come to the ground and collect the fragments of their previous feastings.

A Country Year - Moorhens and Coots

January 1st to January 18th

As we journey on we notice the footmarks of mice and rats. These have made a line with their tails, which, together with the footprints mark their identity. Passing a running stream we see the unmistakable signs of the long toed footprint of the moorhen, whose sideboard now is of limited dimensions. The stoat has also travelled this way, we know his mark, the feet being all in a bunch as he jumped along. The tolling of but one solitary bell reminds us that we must cease our out-door observations for a while.

From the Norwich Mercury E. Kay Robinson (1905) - During the recent frosty weather it would have been hard to say where one might expect to find a moorhen, for the cunning bird quickly abandons the frozen waterside when it no longer affords concealment and food, and betakes himself to the woods and hedges. Unlike the coot, who stays with the wild duck on the ice, and lurks among the reed beds, because his lobed feet unfit him to become a perching bird, the moorhen, though rather clumsy and heavy footed, makes himself at home in the trees and bushes, and soon finds out in hard weather where fowls and pheasants are fed.

Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk by the Rev. Richard Lubbock (1845) - Water Hen or Moor Hen. Although this bird is often found in the same situation as the coot, although they nest and bring up their young together - no birds differ more in habits. The Moor Hen is familiar, half domestic - not shunning, but courting the company of man. If food is thrown down for pheasants in a carr in the marshes, the Moor Hens arrive at the keepers whistle even before the pheasants. If a cottage is built close by the edge of a broad, Moor Hens are sure to draw towards that part of the water, particularly if fowls are kept, with which they share whatever grain is allotted to them. The coot is at once driven away by the same means, the noises of the children, the barking of the dog, the music of the pig in the stye, affright him; he seeks the solitary reed beds and the open water. In winter, the Moor Hen pressed by hunger, gets still bolder, and comes up to the very door of the marsh cottage, and roosts in the fence of the small enclosure marked of as a garden. This bird never collects in the large flocks which the coots form themselves into, but is yet somewhat gregarious, particularly in hard weather.

Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk by the Rev. Richard Lubbock (1845) - The Coot. They remain upon the broads as long as possible, when the water in general is frozen, they will crowd into the wake made by swans, which always remains open long after the main pool is frozen. An opening of this kind is sometimes entirely filled with Coots. They appear to dislike the migration to salt water, which is then their only resource, and to be willing to undergo any hardship rather than leave their beloved broad.

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