The reserve celebrated a very significant Birthday yesterday: It is now 18 years old! The first sod was dug to begin the creation of the reserve on 31 October 1995. Reserve staff celebrated in style by working on our brand new Mere Hide (which is now built by the way!):
Here it is from behind
Here it is from the front (with volunteer Karen peaking out of the window!)
This is what it looks like inside
Here is another view of the pool (or Mere!) that it looks over with West Wood in the background
Of course, as with most birthday parties, there were some party "poopers" (although thankfully not literally as you will see below!) One of the main tasks was the rolling of the path down to the hide. Everything was going so well until some of the local cattle escaped from New Fen North and decided to explore that freshly rolled path................
Image credits: Phil Hammond
After all of the hard work (and some hasty rounding up of cattle!) the path was rolled again so that work can continue another day! Just to reiterate, the hide isn't open quite yet as we need to build a section of boardwalk up to it.
We couldn't have done any of this work without the very generous grant of £55,000 that we received from Waste Recycling Environmental (WREN) at the beginning off the year. Thank you very much from the team at RSPB Lakenheath Fen!
There was also lots of great wildlife to see on this special day. At least one of the great white egrets was still around and was seen in various locations throughout the day. I saw it just north of the second washland pool along with four little egrets yesterday morning. A water pipit also flew up nearby, calling as it went. I also saw a common frog on the hard track just south of East Wood. Despite the fact that I have now been working here for five years, I can still count the amount of times that I have seen this lovely amphibian on the reserve on one hand!
There was also plenty to see yesterday afternoon down at Joist Fen viewpoint. There were at least six marsh harriers hunting over the west end of the reserve and two sparrowhawks were nearby. A female merlin flew east over the viewpoint just before dusk and a kingfisher was also whizzing around as the light faded.
Also, I have just about got space to tell you about the otter that keeps appearing on the washland pool in the afternoons. Although it is very unpredictable, if you head to the viewpoint from around 3pm onwards you stand a good chance of seeing it. We had fantastic views of it at that time on Tuesday evening so good luck! We hope to see you soon.