Simon Aspinall is remembered in the UAE for his books on the country's birds. Now his passion for wildlife and conservation have been recognised in the UK, with a centre named after him in the beautiful marshes of eastern England.
Gazing out across reed-fringed salt marshes towards the distant North Sea on this sunny July morning, it is easy to understand why globe-trotting British ornithologist Simon Aspinall returned again and again to this idyllic place on England’s east coast and why he had planned to retire here.
It was not to be. Aspinall – who established himself as one of the leading experts in the region’s bird life in a career that included 17 years documenting the birds of the UAE – lost his battle for life in October 2011, struck down at the age of 53 by motor neuron disease.
However, his work and passion for conservation will not be forgotten in Cley Marshes – the beautiful wildlife reserve in Norfolk that helped shape his lifelong passion for nature.
Last month, naturalist and TV presenter Sir David Attenborough opened the Simon Aspinall Wildlife Education Centre at Cley “in recognition of his contribution to ornithology and nature conservation in the UK and UAE”.
The natural world, said Sir David, was in great danger: “If we are going to care for it we have to understand it.”
That was something that Aspinall had understood, Sir David said, and his expertise “is now being handed on with this wonderful educational centre”.
Richard Aspinall, Simon’s elder brother and lifelong collaborator in nature conservation, environmental science and ornithology, also spoke at the ceremony. His brother, he said, had “absolutely loved Cley and these landscapes,” and the family was “immensely proud of Simon having his name on this centre”.
As for Simon, he said, he would have been “actually speechless, which happened very rarely”.
The Norfolk Wildlife Trust began fund-raising for the Aspinall centre in July 2012, just nine months after his death. By May last year, when Aspinall’s parents performed the ceremonial cutting of the first turf, the trust had raised £2.6 million, with donors ranging from members of the public to the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund.
The development included the purchase of a further stretch of marsh land on the coast, linking Cley with another of the trust’s reserves. It means the raised wooden terrace that is part of the Aspinall Centre now has spectacular views over an eight-kilometre stretch of land under conservation care.
“This is a fantastic tribute to Simon,” says Richard Porter, a close friend and fellow ornithologist, as he stands on the terrace, peering through his binoculars.
“He would have been blown away to think this was named after him.”
A natural jewel set between a shingle shoreline and the lush fields and hedgerows of England’s most eastern county, Cley Marshes teems with bird life.
Avocet, wigeon, teal, shelduck, sandpiper, tern, grey plover – all these and more can be seen from the terrace that overlooks the reeds, boardwalks and hides.
The reeds would have been a sight familiar to Simon in his many trips to the Middle East – phragmites australis, providing abundant cover for nesting birds at Cley, is also found in the UAE.
Back in England, a marsh harrier glides past, eyeing the ground for breakfast. Its appearance triggers a chorus of shrill alarm calls as a pair of ground-nesting oyster catchers rise to mob the predator and protect their chicks.
Indifferent to the drama, a spoonbill lands to wade elegantly through one of the shallow reed-fringed pools, scything its shovel-like bill from side to side to harvest a meal of small fish and insects.
Aspinall discovered Cley during a school trip at the age of 13 and fell in love with the place. When he left school, he chose to pursue his studies at the nearby University of East Anglia because it was only a short drive away from the marshes and he finally bought a house in Cley village in 1997.
His parents, Jack and Sylvia, who moved to the neighbouring village of Holt to take care of their son after his diagnosis in 2007, estimate that Aspinall visited at least 100 countries.
“He was an outdoor person,” says Jack Aspinall, an energetic 91-year-old as he sits in the visitor centre overlooking the marshes that his son loved.
“In Victorian times, he’d have been an explorer, there’s no doubt about that.”
Wherever his travels took him, like a homing bird Simon always returned to Cley. The opening of the education centre means a great deal to Simon’s parents, who “rejoiced” when they saw it full of children at Easter.
Mrs Aspinall dates the beginning of her son’s passion for wildlife to about 1968 when, as an eight-year-old, he took a spare place on a field trip organised by his brother’s school.
“He wasn’t really old enough but he went and that was it,” she says. “He was completely hooked.” After that, “he never went out for a walk without bringing something back to learn about it. So we had dead birds, stones, plants – anything and everything.”
Mr Aspinall says his son had a simple philosophy: “Go out, learn something, write it down then communicate it to other people. He followed that for 40 years – marvellous.”
It is this passion for understanding and communicating about wildlife that will live on through the centre.
“Simon was a brilliant communicator of his own enthusiasms – in lectures, in his books and on field trips – always seeking to spread the word about the importance of wildlife conservation,” says UAE resident Peter Hellyer, a columnist for The National and long-time friend of Aspinall. The pair co-authored several books on the natural history and archaeology of the UAE.
During his time in the Emirates, Aspinall had been: “Devoted to the study of all aspects of the UAE’s environment and wildlife and made a great contribution to knowledge of it during his years in Abu Dhabi,” says Mr Hellyer who visited Aspinall at Cley in his last months.
“He was particularly interested not only in recording everything he saw but also in advocating the conservation of our fragile habitats and endangered species.”
Most importantly, perhaps: “He had a special ability to communicate with children, inspiring them with his own passion for the world around us.”
The Simon Aspinall Centre, says Mr Hellyer, is “a fitting tribute to Simon and his work”.
“In the years ahead, the thousands of people, children and adults, visiting the centre will be able to use it to learn about the natural world and about the importance of protecting it.”
Cley also plays a central role in one of Richard Porter’s last memories of Aspinall.
The two men – who first met 30 years ago while working for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds – collaborated frequently after Simon moved to the UAE in 1993 to work for the National Avian Research Centre and collaborated on the acclaimed second edition of the book Birds of the Middle East.
Aspinall was bedridden in his parent’s nearby home at Holt by the time their second book, Birds of the United Arab Emirates, was ready for publication in 2011.
“He saw it through to completion but not publication,” says Mr Porter. “But I was able to give him an unbound copy of the book shortly before he died.”
Plans are now well advanced for the publication of an Arabic version of the book – a development that would have delighted Simon.
“He would have been thrilled to know that his work is going to be available in the language of the people of the UAE, as it should be,” says Mr Porter, who also worked with Aspinall on conservation programmes in Saudi Arabia, Oman and on the Yemeni island of Socotra and in the training of Iraqi conservationists in Syria.
Near the end, but before he was confined to his bed by the disease, Aspinall continued to go birding – packing his wheelchair into the car and driving down to the hides at Cley.
Mr Porter has a bittersweet memory of one of their last outings together and a sighting that seems symbolic of much of his friend’s life and work.
In October 2010, he and Mr Porter spotted a red-necked phalarope, a relatively rare migratory bird that breeds in the north but during the winter months can be found in large flocks in the seas off Arabia.
The bird is known for its curious practice of spinning in the water. As though in salute, this one, pausing on its 5,000km journey south to warmer climes, put on the display of a lifetime for the two old friends.
Mr Porter later published a paper in the journal British Birds, noting that he and Aspinall had recorded their phalarope executing 206 non-stop spins – in all probability a record.
For the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the connection between Cley and the Simon Aspinall centre was a natural fit right from the start.
“So many people around Cley knew him and respected him and his values,” says Nik Khandpur, head of development at the trust. “But the thing that came across most to us was his commitment to international conservation and education, which is also the ethos of the Simon Aspinall centre.”
Appropriately enough, it was nature that had the last word in the building of the Simon Aspinall centre.
In May 2014, just after Jack and Sylvia Aspinall had ceremonially cut the turf with Simon’s spade, work on the centre had to be put on hold for a couple of weeks because a ground-nesting little ringed plover – protected by law in the UK – chose that moment to nest right in the middle of the building site.
“It felt very apt,” says Ms Khandpur. “I’m sure Simon would have loved it.”
