Mud, glorious mud: restored ditches bring birds flocking back to Norfolk wetlands

Jake Fiennes is putting wildlife back into the farmed landscape, showing how nature can be at the heart of post-Brexit reforms

From the driver's seat of his pickup truck, Jake Fiennes points to the dark green strips of grass that betray the location of a dried-out saltwater creek system on the Holkham estate in Norfolk. If the early autumn rains allow, a rotary ditcher dragged by a tractor will soon score shallow channels in the sandy soil to excavate many of the old waterways. Fiennes, the estate's conservation director, and his wardens, Andy and Paul, will then fill them with standing water from the site's chalk aquifers, part of a plan to transform dozens of fields into grazing wetlands on the 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) farm and nature reserve.

Fiennes is certain that next spring will see yet more lapwings, avocets and other rare wetland birds thriving in the mud on the edges of the channels - known as field drains - in the habitat they share with a herd of about 800 cattle.