Good morning. It has been like winter here over the last couple of days so in an attempt to brighten things up a bit, I thought that I would share an image from one of our reserve trail cameras from the last couple of days:
Yes, it’s one of our crane parents and it has two chicks. How exciting! As you may know, we have two resident pairs of cranes here and at this time of year, they can be quite tricky to see as they are nesting. However, if you look in the background of this picture, you can see the railway line, which forms the southern boundary of the reserve. Therefore, if you are travelling between Ely and Brandon on the train at the moment, you may be lucky enough to see one of our crane families!
It is very important to state at this point that these youngsters can’t fly yet. They are still a couple of weeks from fledging. However, this pair fledged two young on the reserve last year so we have our fingers crossed that they will be successful again this year.
Our other pair of cranes, that we know as “Little and Large”, have been feeding in Humphrey’s Paddock occasionally. This is the grazing marsh in front of Joist Fen viewpoint. They do have at least one chick with them, but please note that the young are very small so you will have to be very lucky to catch a glimpse of one of them. The other pair caught on camera above are currently favouring a part of the reserve that is only really visible from the train so if you visit, you are unlikely to see them for the time being.
While I am on the subject of trail cameras, here are a few other images that have been captured by the trail camera:
Common buzzard:
Grey heron:
Yawning sheep:
Crane selfie:
We hope to see you on the reserve soon!