There is a deep nostalgia in us for a place we have never been. It is the place where, as if by magic, the ancient, atavistic barriers between humans and other animals have melted away. It’s something to do with Eden, it’s something to do with old myths about the enchanted combe, it’s something to do with Narnia, it's something to do with Alice in the wood of oblivion, where a fawn allowed Alice to embrace it and walk with it to the wood’s end – where, alas, it remembered who it was and ran away.

I felt that I had found this place the first time I went to Minsmere. Minsmere is the RSPB’s flagship reserve on the Suffolk coast. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I found a colony of sand martins. Then I saw a wren singing from the top of a bush: and it didn't even bother to move as we passed.

Think of what that means. The bird did not see humans as a threat. The old rules had been re-written, the traditional flight distances had been halved, the birds were happier with humans here inside Minsmere than they were outside the boundaries. Astonishingly, unprecedentedly, I found myself in a place of tolerance, co-existence and trust.

Minsmere is an overwhelming experience. Avocets, once extinct as breeding birds in this country, are there in the warmer months in vast elegant throngs: living RSPB logos. Marsh harriers, the world’s most nonchalant bird of prey, were down to a single pair in this country, needless to say, their home was at Minsmere. Now there are literally hundreds in Britain. I saw them at Minsmere, on that first trip, but perhaps the most vivid memory was a kingfisher: that tiny and elusive bird every one longs to see. And there one was, positively flaunting itself, fishing with luminous brilliance.

I went on to write a book about Minsmere. After that - there’s no point in fighting fate - I moved to Suffolk. I now live 15 minutes away from Minsmere, and drop in often. The place has never lost its specialness. Of course, these days it is a tourist honey pot. The old car park with the sand martins has closed, because it was no longer big enough. Sometimes the hides are packed.

Amazing: when the place first opened, there were hardly any visitors at all, and those that came were let in grudgingly. Their presence was thought to be dangerous, counter-productive. However, these days, it is understood that the humans are as important as the birds: and the place is managed for visitors without harming the numbers of birds.

That’s as it should be. Conservation is about looking after our fellow-animals, and preserving the wild places: but it is also about giving profound joy to human beings. We need birds, we need wild places: because without them, we lose something of our own humanity. Minsmere is a perfect example of what humans can do to a place, to a landscape, to make it wilder: better for birds, better for humans. It is a reminder, an important one, that every now and then we can do something right.

Dawn in May is perhaps the best time of all to be there: and the dawn chorus walks get booked up months in advance. When you arrive, even before the sky has begun to pale, you can hear two of the finest birds in the country. A nightingale will be throbbing with passion from a thicket, and in the distance, the soft-far-carrying roar of the bittern, the great secret skulker of the reeds. Oh, there’s music in the air at Minsmere, and magic too. Since that first visit, I’ve never really left the place, nor has the place left me.