My tip for angling on the Norfolk Broads – just copy Harry the Heron

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/05/angling-norfolk-broads-heron

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On Monday I did something I’ve done only once before: I went fishing. It was journalistic “work” (all right for some) and nothing much happened during eight hours on a small boat, which I guess is the point. We were on the Norfolk Broads, where an 81-year-old was this week fined for speeding in his cruiser, Hebejebe, at 6mph. Anyone around these parts knows that this is a terrifying pace, which cheats you of myriad watery pleasures.

Float quietly on tree-clad rivers and stuff happens. Firstly, you get cold. I contracted an aching chill despite eight layers of clothing. Secondly, you see all kinds of loveliness: kingfishers flashing iridescent blue, marsh harriers flapping low overhead and a big dog otter slipping into the water. (Anglers are up in arms about the resurgent otter population, but my guide for the day reckoned that pike had learned to avoid them: when otters first returned to the rivers he would catch pike covered in bite marks, but now there are plenty of pristine monsters of the deep.)

The third thing you discover are fishing’s slow stories and gentle jokes. A favourite aphorism beloved by fishermen was repeated by my companion, also an avid angler: “I’ll be glad when I’ve had enough of this.” We swapped stories until the moon rose but caught nothing. The only folk who did were the pike that chomped our bait, and Harry, who was the best angler of all. A tall, taciturn fellow with gimlet eye and straggly grey beard, he followed us everywhere. Eventually, we rewarded Harry the heron by throwing him our unused herring bait. He deftly swallowed it whole.

Ukip-on-sea

It is easy to jeer that Ukip wants to take us back to the dark ages, but the problem in the party’s East Anglian heartland is actually the opposite: Ukip hopes to quell the flood of exotic visitors from ancient times. During winter storms each year, Norfolk’s rapidly eroding cliffs unveil many treasures. Last week, the jawbone of a 700,000-year-old rhinoceros was found on West Runton beach, a few yards from the site of the famous West Runton Elephant, the finest example of a prehistoric mammoth, which was excavated 20 years ago. A few miles away, erosion at Happisburgh last year revealed the oldest human footprints outside Africa, from at least 850,000 years ago.

The trouble is, Ukip wants to ban erosion. “Defence is the first duty of government,” trumpets Michael Baker, its candidate for North Norfolk. “It is not only necessary to protect our country from invading human forces, but also from invasion by the sea and rivers.” So if Ukip candidates win their coastal strongholds we can expect the marauding waves to be conquered by the party of King Canute.

Angry emperors

Biologists usually hate the word “personality” being ascribed to animals, but scientists are increasingly interested in the interior lives of small creatures. Cockroaches have at least two personality types – bold explorers and shy cautious – according to Belgian researchers, who watched the much-maligned invertebrates’ differing responses when placed in an open enclosure with two shelters. A fertile source of further investigation is to examine – as Belgian scientists did – how small animals possess a group personality, almost a collective intelligence. As a butterfly lover, I’m convinced that different species have complex and varied personalities.

The naturalist Matthew Oates observes in his brilliant memoir, published later this year, how purple emperor butterflies in one English wood behave much more aggressively than elsewhere. They appear to have a collective personality, perhaps shaped by their environment, raging and fighting with each other every summer. Appropriately, the wood is called Dragons Green.