In his latest Wild in Anglia trip, Nigel Pickover enjoys the special magic of Suffolk's only island.
Excitement was all around. In the air, on the ground, and in thousands of tiny hearts.
As the Beast from the East retreated to its icy lair, the sun shone at last and I was on a tiny island (pop: nil) close to the East Anglian coast.
A sharp North wind had replaced its Eastern cousin but Phoebe (as some call the sun in these parts) was shining brightly, the air was clear and spirits were soaring on pocket-sized Havergate Island.
Hundreds of birds, including lesser black-backed and herring gulls, put up a wall of sound in front of their unexpected visitor - me.
But it wasn't just those who take to the skies who were happy. A plump hare was stretching on the grass, the early rays soaking into thick fur.
It lolloped away when it saw me - unaware that it is part of the success story that is tiny Havergate, two miles long by roughly half a mile wide, and expertly run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Near neighbour Orford Ness, a spit which runs up to Aldeburgh and is definitely not an island, is looked after by the National Trust.
Havergate's manager Lyndsey Record took the wheel of the RSPB launch October Storm for the short journey to Havergate.
I felt fortunate that snow had given way to sun and that I was to have the island to myself for a few hours.
Hard-working Lyndsey, who skippers the Orford-based RSPB launch which takes 12 visitors a time to the island - as well as taking on the extensive chores there - dropped me at Havergate's jetty on the River Alde.
In my first few steps, I wondered how this special, tiny, vulnerable, place had fared a little more than four years ago when the tidal storm surge bore down on Suffolk.
The answer is 'not very well' as the island was inundated.
Bird hides were badly damaged and the wooden huts which act as an island command centre were flooded.
While birds can take flight for refuge inland, Havergate's much-loved hares, some 30 of the beauties, were not so lucky. More than 20 were lost to the waves.
Somehow, in an incredible escape that desperate night, eight hares found a high spot and survived.
Thankfully, those eight are now 10-plus in number and a recovery is under way.
Lyndsey and her colleagues are delighted - but ever-watchful for foxes, which given half a chance would snatch birds, their chicks, and any hare they might come across.
Foxes are not resident - but not frightened to swim to Havergate, which must seem like a noisy larder from the mainland.
I visited both ends of the mainly salt marsh expanse, enjoying the birds, and the wind-whipped serenity.
I was astonished at the number of birds, many of which will be in full nesting cry within days. There were hundreds of cormorants - a gigantic gulp (a brilliant collective noun).
Havergate is a gull (and cormorant colony) but there are many rare visitors - a marsh harrier flew overhead during my visit - and a barn owl nests there in a lovely spot.
The island was walled, reclaimed and then farmed around 500 years ago. It has been used as arable land and for grazing cattle, which had to swim to the island for their supper.
It has also been used for gravel extraction and as a forward base for smugglers. The last inhabitants left at the end of the 1920s.
After the end of the Second World War avocets were discovered there and at sister Suffolk reserve, Minsmere. This encouraged the RSPB to buy it in 1948 and thereafter to manage saline lagoons to suit breeding and wintering birds, including avocets, common terns and Sandwich terns.
Visitors must book in advance, for both general and special interest trips. Those arranged this year include: Capturing First light on Havergate (April 8); Havergate Hares (April 14/15); Spoonbill surprise (July 28/29); and Flight of the Avocet (September 22/23).
Explore Havergate Island trips are the first Saturday of each month (except May, June and July when it is closed for the bird breeding season)
More info: 01394 450732 or from https://tinyurl.com/havergate
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