Les has been a Voluntary Warden with us at Suffolk Wildlife Trust since 1987. After moving close by to Norman Gwatkin Reserve (which then grew into Hen Reedbeds nature reserve) he began his volunteer journey. 

In September 2025 Les was awarded our 'Hidden Hero Award' to recognise his dedication to his role and Suffolk's nature. Below he has recounted a snippet of his journey as a volunteer warden.

In the beginning 

When I moved to Bulcamp Drift in Autumn 1986 I was thrilled to find a nature  reserve more or less at the bottom of the lane. On my second evening visit to the hide I met John Minihane, the Suffolk Wildlife Trust voluntary warden, who invited me to join the work party the following Sunday. 

I attended every work party that winter and the following year was invited to become a voluntary warden myself. I accepted without hesitation, one of the best decisions I ever made!  

Though I moved to Oulton Broad a few years later I stayed on as warden at Gwatkin (now a part of Hen Reedbeds), a reserve I had come to love. Work parties at that time lasted all day, mainly coppicing, path maintenance, croming dykes and cutting small areas of reed with a scythe. On coppicing days we always had a fire and gazing into the flames became the occupation of choice as the afternoon wore on. 

Conservation at Gwatkin and beyond 

Later hides on the reserve overlooked the adjacent marshes and gave wonderful views of barn owls, drumming snipe, a thriving heronry on the edge of the wood opposite and the occasional marsh harrier. (Harrier breeding records near the site go back to 1982, at least.) In the wet woodland section of the reserve itself there were regular encounters with lesser-spotted woodpecker, marsh tit, nuthatch and willow warbler. Nightingales sang by the entrance gate for several years. Water vole, grass snake and harvest mouse were also regularly found.

During my ten years in Oulton Broad I was a committee member of the long disbanded Lowestoft Members’ Group which met at Carlton Marshes reserve. Nick Sanderson, the then reserve manager, encouraged me to apply for a Millennium Fellowship and  on doing so I was lucky enough to be selected to join a research project (peccaries and freshwater ecology) in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest for a fortnight in 1999, an unforgettable experience!  My volunteering activities with Suffolk Wildlife Trust certainly played a part in my selection. During this period I also took part in many BTCV  conservation working holidays both in the UK and abroad including trips to Norway, Hungary, Italy, Turkey and Poland, visiting the Biebrza Marshes area which soon after provided the first koniks for Suffolk Wildlife Trust. 

Creating Hen Reedbeds Nature Reserve 

A neglected reedbed occupied part of the Gwatkin reserve, this is still present in a revised form to this day. (Gwatkin Reedbed.) In the early 90’s Mike Harding, then Suffolk Wildlife Trust Reserves Manager, asked  John Minihane and I to test burn a small area of the neglected reedbed to see whether that would be a viable way of reducing the thick litter layer which was contributing to the drying out of the bed. The flames ran through the standing reed but didn’t touch the litter. I believe this was when the seed which soon developed into the Hen Reedbeds project was planted, as alternative solutions came to be considered. Mike Harding, having left the trust by then, came back as project manager, with Alan Miller, John Minihane and myself the designated project team. 

John and I were invited to continue as wardens of the much expanded reserve and were joined soon afterwards by a third warden, Kelvin Phillpott who remained a warden for around five years. Peter Boyden replaced him a short time later.

I moved to Halesworth in 2000, took a new, less demanding job and was able to spend more time at the new expanded reserve. In the early years our work parties dug out thousands of willow and alder saplings found sprouting in the reedbeds and, particularly, on the bunds.

Fundraising and supporting

During my time at Hen Reedbeds I have given numerous talks about Hen to other local members groups and the like, I have led walks round Hen for the local group, I have written notes about the reserve for the local group newsletter, I have hand delivered the Suffolk Wildlife Trust magazine and have raised funds for the Trust through sales of a CD giving my take on the reserve. My wife, Chris Silver, produced a series of coloured pencil illustrations of animals at Hen and other trust reserves which we had printed as cards and were sold in many locations in North Suffolk for many years, raising significant funds for the trust. More recently I spent a number of years on the committee of the Southwold Members group. 

Fond memories 

I have a wealth of wonderful memories from my years at Hen, along with a few sadder ones. A favourite one is from 2013 when a high tide punched a hole in the river wall, flooding Wolsey Creek reedbed and Alan Miller, knowing  this was imminent, realised at the last minute that if this happened the salt water could run ‘backwards’  through the water transfer pipe under the road and inundate the Wang Reedbed as well. He rammed a bucket tightly in the top of the pipe and the bucket was found still in place when the flood water level dropped and prevented what was already a serious incident becoming so much worse.  

At a personal level my encounter on a cold and windy Saturday morning with an otter at Wolsey  Creek is a favourite. On realising I was very close to it as I stood on top of the river wall the otter swam closer up the channel and then turned to inspect me from about ten yards away. For a few moments I felt ‘connected’ to it. I felt that the otter had probably seen me on numerous occasions before and knew that it could trust me. A very special moment for me.

Norman Gwatkin and Hen Reedbeds have been an important part of my life for nearly half of my lifetime.  Every time I am present when a visitor hears a bittern boom for the first time, gasps at a harrier food pass, spots a party of beaded tits in the reedbed, marvels at a starling murmuration etc. their reactions remind me how privileged I am to have experienced these things and so much more on a regular basis through all that time and to have played a very small part in providing and maintaining the conditions required for it all to happen. 

I have visited the reserve thousands of times and will continue to do so for as long as I am able, no two visits are ever alike, and I have been repaid many times over for my small efforts on behalf of this wonderful place.