I could go on: caribou migrating through the icy forests of Alaska, scarlet ibis thronging to their roost in Trinidad, mega-pods of common dolphins off the west of Mexico. The priceless wildlife of our Earth, exquisitely filmed, produced, narrated.

But there’s a problem. Not with Sir David Attenborough, of course. Nor with the BBC Natural History Unit or with Animal Planet per se. But with the illusion that great wildlife spectacles are always somewhere else on Earth, on other continents, beyond our sphere of influence. And that, to experience them, we need the television, the internet and sage celebrities.

We don’t. Right here in Norfolk we have wildlife spectacles of world significance and fame. And August is the month for one of them.

A flock of red knot and bar-tailed godwit in flight at high water roost on the Wash estuary. Photo: 2020VISION On just a few dates every year in August and September, lunar, planetary and tidal forces all align to bring us birds from right across the Arctic Circle. On the right tides, thousands upon thousands of them seethe around the south edge of The Wash: the priceless, salty, muddy wilderness we share with Lincolnshire; and we care for on behalf of Planet Earth.

Tens of thousands of these birds – at times more than a hundred thousand – are red knot. In August........

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