Mickle Mere by Steve Aylward
Legacy stories: Mickle Mere
Mickle Mere, just 2½ miles downstream on the Black Bourn, is a veritable oasis for wetland birds. Easily seen from Ixworth bypass, the site’s mosaic of wet meadows, open water and sedge-fringed ditches attract wetland birds throughout the year and have made it well known amongst local birders.
Bill Payn
A legacy gift from William (Bill) Payn enabled us to buy Mickle Mere in 2002. Bill was one of the Trust’s founders and the author of Birds of Suffolk. As a lifelong bird lover, Bill had asked that his gift should be used to buy a nature reserve with ornithological importance.
Brought up in a time when Suffolk’s countryside was idyllic, Bill was ideally placed to recognise the destruction and degradation that began just after the Second World War. By remembering the Trust in his Will, he made sure the conservation effort that was such an important part of his life would continue.