Renowned nature writer visits Sustead Common

Patrick Barkham, natural history writer for the Guardian and author of The Butterfly Isles, shortlisted for the 2011 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prize, Badgerlands, hailed by Chris Packham as "a must read for all Britain's naturalists" and shortlisted for both the 2014 RSL Ondaatje Prize and the inaugural Wainwright Prize for Nature and Travel Writing, and Coastlines, published by Granta Books in April 2015, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the National Trust's campaign to save the British coast, visited Sustead Common on Tuesday to learn first-hand about the work of Felbeck Trust. Trustees told Patrick of the work that has been done by Felbeck Trust on The Common over the past couple of years and about our ambitious plans for Spurrell's Wood - once we've raised sufficient funds to complete the purchase.

Here, in perhaps the 'crucible of conservation complacency', Norfolk, Patrick heard how we are working hard with local communities, using traditional materials and skills, to 'save the ordinary' from becoming rare or, potentially worse - lost altogether. We're helping bring back wildlife to our beleaguered countryside - a message Patrick understood all too well.