Thank you to Steve and Sarah, who brought their home-grown plants stall to Fen Drayton Lakes today to raise funds for us.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn't good and there were few visitors here to take advantage of the top quality plants at bargain prices.  The good news is that they'll be back next Sunday (July 24th).  Where else can you get well-grown lavenders for just £1 and donate money to the RSPB at the…

A couple of people have had to pull out of our willow-weaving workshop on Thursday 21 July.  If you'd like to make a basket, using willow harvested here at Fen Drayton Lakes and prepared by our workshop tutor, please phone us on 01954 233260 and book your place(s).  We start at 10am, finish around 4pm;  you only need to bring your lunch and the fee, which is £15, or £10 if you are an RSPB member.

I scouted a route last night for this morning's guided walk.  I had the amazing sight of a flock of 42 common sandpipers, so decided that we should view the same area this morning, in the hope that the flock would have remained.

Unfortunately for my merry band, the sandpipers had continued their migration - perhaps they'd heard about the satellite-tagged cuckoo that has already reached the coast of North Africa, or…

I've spent a couple of days this week supporting our field teachers, with two classes visiting us from Fenstanton and Hilton Primary School.  The children have had a great time, learning about all sorts of nature, and lake dipping has probably been the most popular activity for the majority of them.  Huge pond snails and leeches were the favourite finds.

The children learn to use a range of senses, and to help them…

Barn owls are the sort of bird that can capture anyone’s attention, whether you claim to be a bird watcher or can’t tell a robin from a raven. 

Robin (in this case, a human being) is one of our regular visitors, and he dragged his son out for a walk at Fen Drayton Lakes this week.  Robin didn’t tell me what his son likes doing, other than bird watching wasn’t one of his interests.  However, their…

The skies over Fen Drayton Lakes were quite a sight today.  At times, bright blue and sunny, then moments later, deep blue and stormy, with "interesting" cloud formations.   The spectacle was provided by swifts.

You just needed to look through binoculars towards the storm clouds, and see hundreds of birds surfng the skies, no doubt trawling for insects on the weather front that was bringing in yet another downpour…

Sorry for the delay in posting this blog.  Once we leave site there is so much cleaning to be done and equipment to put away  It took four Landover loads to get everything returned to the office!

          Taking a column tin sample

On the final day of excavation at Willingham Mere we had a lot of work to finish off, recording the final section, cleaning for a full photograph to show all the different deposits in their layers…

It is getting towards the end of the dig now, and we can tell that we have dug ourselves down to sea level.  The deposits are getting wetter and wetter and pumping is becoming a routine part of the day.   We should not really complain about the water table; if the mere had not been permanently waterlogged since the Bronze Age we would not be able to gather the data that we have.

          three grown men making mud pies!

Even…

The excavation on site seems to be progressing smoothly despite the rain yesterday.  The volunteers didn’t get put off (apart from Bill who hurt his back (wink wink)).  The organic layers are proving productive and we have also made a start on drawing and recording the artefacts.  These include the coot bone, several pike bones and the (now two pieces) of worked wood!  We have also uncovered half (the upper half) of…

It has been a very busy weekend down at Willingham Mere with lots of visitors and exciting archaeology.   Dr Steve Borham made a guest appearance and helped us to understand the stratigraphy (layers) we are excavating.  This has greatly increasing our understanding of the mere deposits. 

Although it is a very complex story I have summarised here...

During its life the mere has passed through several phases.  It initially…

Thursday 2^nd and Friday 3^rd June

We’ve had a very productive couple of days.  We now have two trenches underway within our excavation.  We are digging each trench in 10cm spits, recording everything as we go. 

                                                  The excavation so far

On Thursday, in Trench A, we uncovered, cleaned, and recorded a layer of wood that we found within the lower organic deposit.  Today, Friday, we lifted it and were excited to see that…

The next few blogs are going to be focused on a rather different activity to normal, on the dig at Willingham Mere, written by guest bloggers from the archaeology team.  This exciting project will combine excavation and scientific study of a drained prehistoric lake.  The discoveries could help to develop plans for the design of Ouse Fen, following sand and gravel quarrying that will happen in the next few years.

Tuesday…

Well, after fabulous weather for the previous bank holiday weekends, this one has been much more typical.  Cold winds gave way to rain today, but we had one of those moments when you really need eyes in the back of your head.

A turtle dove was heard singing close to the information point at the car park.  We only had to walk a few metres to get a clear sight-line, and the telescope views were stunning.  You could even see…

Despite the strong winds, a wide range of birds were at Fen Drayton Lakes today, with a grand total of 77 species recorded.  Some highlights on the "Lazy Sunday" guided walk included hearing the different calls of a male and a female cuckoo, as well as a singing grasshopper warbler.  We also saw a bar-tailed godwit (what was that doing here?) and had two kingfisher sightings.  The big question was, did we see two…

Steve Blain has sent me a photograph, which I've added to the Fen Drayton Lakes Gallery.  It shows a coot, in the Covell's Drain next to Swavesey Lake, and was taken on Saturday.  Nothing unusual in that, but look closer.  On it's right leg you will see a blue ring with the letters CV in white.  Individually marking birds in this way tells us a lot, so what did we learn about this bird?  Well, it was ringed on…

We started off with a wheatear on the field next ot the car park on Friday morning, and great views of a cuckoo using the fence posts as look-out posts, and finished with our first swifts of 2011 on Monday evening.  In between, we've been listening to 10 species of warbler, a nightingale and many other song birds (which bodes well for our dawn chorus walk next weekend), and had a number of migrating waders putting in appearances…

In fact, more of most!  An early morning mooch around in the mist this morning showed up thousands of cobwebs, which had caught droplets of moisture. As the sun burnt through, birds began to sing at full volume, including several garden warblers.  Two of them were in a three-cornered competition with a song thrush, in an area that had been used by a nightingale yesterday.  I don't think the nightingale was there today, as…

We heard our first cuckoo of 2011 during this morning's guided walk.  I couldn't easily select one highlight, though, as we all saw a grasshopper warbler and several sedge warblers, and most saw a garden warbler.  Then there was the pair of little (ringed) plovers, displaying and nesting lapwings, a Cetti's warbler trying to deafen us, and the marsh harriers and common buzzards soaring overhead.

We also saw…

A combination of visitors and volunteers today reported 82 bird spcies, including little gulls, one adult Mediterranean gull; a group of 5 common buzzards, wheatear, yellow & white wagtails, 1 swallow, 1 whooper swan, grasshopper, sedge & garden warblers, corn bunting, greenshank & little ringed plover, common terns and possibly a Sandwich tern.  We're still looking for our first cuckoo of 2011.  There were…

- warm, sunny, and more migrants!

I arrived too late to see an osprey flying over, but enjoyed watching a couple of little gulls flying so differently to the black-headed gulls.  Someone found a garden warbler, while another visitor saw a whooper swan flying over....summer and winter on the same day.  Today's 68 recorded bird species also included wheatear, corn bunting, dunlin, oystercatcher, common tern, sedge warbler…

This morning's first job was a survey for breeding birds on Elney Lake, and it was a great start to the day.  Some of our coots and great crested grebes are already on nests, and song birds seemed to be everywhere, trying to make more noice than their neighbours.  Cetti's, sedge and willow warblers, blackcaps anf chiffchaffs were competing with reed buntings, blackbirds, robins, wrens, dunnocks and song thrushes…

the weather has definitely warmed up - we recorded six different butterfly species today, along with 75 bird species.  Warblers were well represented, with the resident Cetti's warblers joined by chiffchaffs, blackcaps, common whitethroats, willow and sedge warblers.  A few swallows were spotted, as were some little ringed plovers, corn buntings and marsh harriers.  What will tomorrow bring?

We saw our first butterfly of the year this morning, an immaculate brimstone, flying in the sun alongside the Oxholme Drain, on the east side of Drayton Lagoon.  Not long afterwards, there was a very ragged comma butterfly flying over Holywell Ferry Road.  Great tits, chaffinches and goldfinches seemed to be singing everywhere; four different Cett's warbler, several dunnocks, wrens and robins were singing too.  A male…