One of things that I love about the Fens are the wide open skies, as they provide fantastic views of sunrises and sunsets, especially at this time of year. The last couple of days have been fantastic for landscape photography and here are a few that I have taken. Enjoy!:
The "red sky in the morning" on Thursday:
The sun rising shortly after over the railway line:
The visitor centre and the moon last night with Venus just visible in between the two:
Image credits: David White
These beautiful skies have certainly been graced by some great wildlife over the last couple of days. Dave went down to the far end of the reserve on Friday afternoon and saw two cranes in flight. They were closely followed by another three and all five ended up north of the river. There was also an impressive count of hen harriers, with at least four males in flight over the west end of the reserve at dusk.
I went for a walk down to New Fen viewpoint before opening up yesterday and saw a female marsh harrier hunting over the reedbed. However, my attention was grabbed by the almost constant bugling of some cranes coming from somewhere at the west end of the reserve. As it was nice and calm, the sound was really carrying. It almost sounded like they were standing right next to me! There were also six roe deer browsing north of the river and a water pipit flew up from the washland north of East Wood.
As the day went on, a male hen harrier and a bittern were seen from Joist Fen viewpoint. There was another great harrier roost count last night with at least 12 marsh harriers and four hen harriers (three males and a "ringtail".) The juvenile peregrine was seen in front of Joist Fen viewpoint and a barn owl was hunting between the furthest two poplar woods at dusk.
It was a lovely morning this morning and I had a nice walk around the new trail in Brandon Fen. I just caught four adult Bewick's swans flying west along the river and a flock of around 50 lapwings flew over my head. There has also been plenty going on behind the visitor centre so far with a kingfisher making a brief visit to the pond and a great variety of finches. Around 20 siskins were feeding in the alders behind the visitor centre and at one point, two chaffinches, two goldfinches, a greenfinch and a mealy redpoll were feeding together on the path. Finchtastic! We hope to see you soon.
Thank you Clare! There is certainly a lot to see at the moment.
Fantastic photos, David! I certainly agree the huge skies are one of the loveliest things about living in East Anglia. Delighted you're getting so much beautiful wildlife.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.