Lost in the sanctuary of the marshes

Such has been the poverty of the spring and early summer weather that the chance of a evening stroll through Salthouse marshes accompanied by sunshine has to be taken - even if England are playing football on the television. As ever, the objective is just immersion in an environment that feels more precious with every passing headline about pollution or global warming.

I'm expecting to share the moment with the avian residents of the marshes, but a small brown bird perched on the telephone wires on the coast road takes my attention. Unusually, it doesn't seem perturbed by approaching man and dog. We pause and I take in the brown and cream stripes of the breast, the dark eye and beak and the long primaries. A spotted flycatcher. Not singing. Not catching insects. Just resting in warmth of the late evening sun.

Buoyed with that new sighting on the list for the year, we push on out on the path heading to the beach accompanied by the sound of the wind in the reeds. Boom for once seems content to sniff about rather than obsess about a swim in the nearest dyke leaving me to scan the water meadows with their cattle and look across the flooded scrapes for other interesting birdlife.

Acknowledging the only other human in view, we reach the shingle bank and climb to the summit avoiding the area roped-off for breeding birds. An avocet takes to the air issuing an alarm call before settling as we move away. A little ringed plover invisible amongst the stones, gives its position away by moving a few steps.

As we track a course between bank and marsh, I permit myself a moment of thankfulness that Boom and I can be out in this semi-wild place betwixt land and sea. With oystercatchers and curlew for company and watched by the marsh harriers above. A moment lost in the sanctuary of the marshes.

I know where the next path goes inland, making a circuit back to the village. So we head that way, just pausing to test whether an app on my phone can pick-up any bird song or calls that deserve special attention. This exercise usually results in hearing something, a reed warbler for example, that is very unlikely ever to present itself into view.

Distracted for a moment by my phone, a small splash tells me the temptation of the water proved too strong and Boom on his long lead has sneaked a dip. Cross at myself for allowing the prospect of a wet dog in the car, I fish him out, reeling him up the bank as you might a record catch in a net. He shakes himself down, seeming not too peeved to be removed in this unceremonious and undignified manner.

From here it's 15 minutes back to the car along the coastal path overlooking the marshes and the sea, still blue in the last of the evening sun. If we hurry, we might just be back home in time for the second half.