Good afternoon. I will begin with some fantastic news: One of the crane pairs that call the reserve home fledged two young yesterday! This is wonderful news and here are some pictures of the family:
Image credits: Dave Rogers
This is the second consecutive year that this pair have fledged two young, which is a very unusual occurrence indeed.
The other pair are still a couple of weeks off fledging so let’s hope that their one young will fledge in around four weeks time. Fingers crossed!
As usual, the best place to see cranes on the reserve is Joist Fen viewpoint, so look out for the family of four in flight if you come and visit over the next couple of weeks.
In other reserve news, one of our prettiest plants is currently in flower near the visitor centre, large flowered hemp nettle:
Image credits: David White
Although our plant book describes this plant as an “arable weed, mostly on peat”, hopefully you will agree that it is really pretty and the flowers are almost reminiscent of orchids.
If you would like to come and see it, it can be found between the visitor centre and the Washland viewpoint. Please ask in the visitor centre for more information.
A barn owl was seen over the entrance track on Thursday morning and a bullfinch was seen in Brandon Fen. Two kingfishers were seen from Mere Hide along with a juvenile sparrowhawk, which said kingfishers were understandably keeping a wide berth of!
As the day went on, volunteer Lawrence heard a grasshopper warbler reeling from the riverbank at the eastern edge of West Wood. He also saw a bittern from New Fen viewpoint.
This morning, a bittern was seen from New Fen viewpoint and a coal tit was singing in front of the visitor centre.
It was really rather wet for our orienteering event but while I was out marshaling, I saw a male marsh harrier from the Washland viewpoint and a golden bloomed grey longhorn beetle near the viewpoint. A chiffchaff was singing behind the visitor centre and several azure damselflies were on the wing over the raised pond bed.
I will return with some more recent sightings on Wednesday so until then, we hope to see you soon!