Nick Acheson - naturalist and conservationist

Nick grew up in North Norfolk, squelching through saltmarshes and cycling quiet lanes in search of wildlife. Since his earliest days he has been enthralled by birds, mammals, insects, plants and other creatures. He spent his youth volunteering for conservation NGOs including Pensthorpe and RSPB.

Completing his M.A. in French literature and his M.Sc. in environmental change and management, both at the University of Oxford, Nick travelled to Bolivia for three months, to participate in a study of austral migrant birds.

Ten years later he came home from this three-month stint, having worked in nature conservation and sustainable development the length and breadth of Bolivia, across South America, and in Australia and India.

On his return to the UK, Nick began work for Norfolk Wildlife Trust, an organisation he holds very dear. From his home in Norfolk, he has since had the privilege of working with wildlife and people on every continent. He has spent four years in Asia, many months in both Madagascar and North America, and has swum and snorkelled or watched whales and seabirds in every ocean.

He is fluent in Spanish and French and speaks appalling Portuguese and Hindi.

Nick now lives very close to his childhood home, in a little flint cottage by a duckpond on a North Norfolk village common. Here he reads, writes, thinks, rescues and rehomes animals, and listens to Bach, Wagner and Bernstein.

Nick's book The Meaning of Geese was published in February 2023. It is the story of seven locked-down months in 2020-21, during which he cycled 1,200 miles around North Norfolk on his mother's 40-year-old bike, in search of the great flocks of Arctic geese whose wild cries haunt the county each winter. Having won the General Non-Fiction category of the East Anglian Book Awards, The Meaning of Geese was judged the East Anglian Book of the Year 2023. It also ranked in the top three 

in the British Birds and British Trust for Ornithology Best Bird Book of the Year 2023.

With an undergraduate degree in literature and an M.Sc. in environmental management, both from the University of Oxford, Nick straddles the boundary between the arts and sciences and brings a love of the written word to communication about nature and the environment.

Nick has written widely on the natural world and our relationship with it, both in Spanish during his life in South America and in English. He published essays in three of Eliot and Thompson's acclaimed Seasons anthologies and in the British Trust for Ornithology's 

Red Sixty Seven. He has an essay in Low Carbon Birding published by Pelagic, which was chosen as British Birds Best Bird Book of the Year 2022.

Nick has written for BBC Wildlife, British Birds, British Wildlife, The Guardian, The Big Issue, BTO News, The Countryman and numerous other publications. For a number of years he has written columns for the Norfolk Magazine and for Norfolk Wildlife Trust's Tern magazine, on which he worked for three years as editor.

Well-known for the breadth of his knowledge on nature and the environment, and the wit and ease with which he explains complex ideas, Nick is an experienced broadcaster with a wide range of credits. He has appeared on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and many times on BBC Radio 4.

He is best known in East Anglia where he makes regular appearances on ITV Anglia, BBC Look East and BBC Radio Norfolk, and presents films for Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Green Light Trust and Pensthorpe.

Having worked in the wild landscapes and seascapes of every continent, Nick has huge experience of their biodiversity. This experience and his exuberant enthusiasm are the hallmarks of his presenting.

Passionately committed to wildlife since childhood, Nick has worked his entire life in biodiversity and landscape conservation.

During his life in Bolivia he contributed to numerous studies of birds and to management plans for several protected areas. For WWF and other conservation NGOs, he worked with indigenous communities and national parks to develop ecotourism and sustainability projects. He helped coordinate Wetlands International's twice-yearly Latin American wetland bird census, ringed thousands of birds on their migration through Bolivia, and was part of a pioneering project to ring James's flamingos at their breeding site in the High Andes.

In the UK he has worked on a huge range of projects for Norfolk Wildlife Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, Pensthorpe and others. 

Nick is proud to be an ambassador for Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Pensthorpe, a trustee of Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, a patron of Felbeck Trust, and a recent president of Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society.

He is a committed campaigner on the environment, living as sustainably as is possible and contributing to a number of environmental initiatives, including Low Carbon Birding.

Nick is an acclaimed speaker, panelist and interviewer. For several years he has hosted events discussing conservation, nature writing and the environment at Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserves. These were taken online during the COVID pandemic.

Participants in Nick's events have included Patrick Barkham, Simon Barnes, Kate Bradbury, Tim Dee, Roy Dennis, Mike Dilger, Jake Fiennes, Nick Gates, Matt Gaw, Dave Goulson, Melissa Harrison, Nick Hayes, Sam Lee, David Lindo, Benedict Macdonald, Erica McAlister, Dara McAnulty, Megan McCubbin, Professor Ian Newton, Chris Packham, Lev Parikian, Stephen Rutt, Anita Sethi and Brigit Strawbridge.

Nick has contributed to New Networks for Nature, Norwich Science Festival, Oxford Literary Festival, FarmED Farm and Food Literature Festival, British Bird and Wildlife Fair, Self-Isolating Bird Club, The Tree Council's Hedge Harmonies, and Oxford Real Farming Conference. He has appeared on wildlife podcasts including Golden Grenades and Into The Wild. He recently co-scripted and voiced a kids' app on the environment for TryLife.

Nick brings infectious passion and an enquiring mind to all his interests.

Having given up flying, and adopted a low carbon lifestyle, Nick is a committed cyclist. In the preparation of his first book he cycled 1,200 miles on his mother's forty-two-year-old bicycle. He is also a keen runner.

Nick's beautiful garden is both his pride and joy and a haven for wildlife. The list of birds he has seen from it includes white-tailed eagle, common crane, woodcock, white stork, grasshopper warbler, marsh harrier, hen harrier, goshawk, hobby, peregrine, barn owl, whimbrel, spotted redshank, green sandpiper, pink-footed goose, shoveler, wigeon, gadwall, teal and brambling.

Nick is wildly in love with theatre, opera and classical music, and is a voracious reader. He has written for Norwich Theatre and reported on the arts for local media. He is never happier than when reading Shakespeare or listening to Bach in his garden, embraced by the happy hum of wool carder bees and Willughby's leafcutters.