This blog post has been inspired by several factors:
If you are not familiar with World Wetlands Day, it celebrates the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971. This agreement was signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar. The aim of the day is to celebrate and raise awareness of wetlands.
I decided that my contribution to this would be to share some aerial photos of the reserve that were taken by Darren, one of our volunteers, back in August. I will also weave in some recent sightings here and there for good measure.
I will start with an aerial view of the washland and the area near the visitor centre:
Image credit: Darren Thompson
Yesterday, a bittern was wandering around at the edge of the visitor centre pond and there were four bramblings behind the visitor centre. This morning, there were six roe deer skulking around in Brandon Fen.
Next, here is a close up view of the large washland pool:
Yesterday, there were two great white egrets at the edge of the pool and a sparrowhawk caught a common snipe over the pool, only to drop it. Fortunately for the common snipe, it lived to see another day!
Moving west, we have New Fen North, the first large area of reedbed:
The viewpoint in the south west corner of this area of reedbed, New Fen viewpoint, has been very reliable for bearded tits recently and it is the best place on the reserve to see kingfishers.
The next view is west from Joist Fen viewpoint. The viewpoint can just about be seen at extreme right of this picture:
This is currently a great place to see roosting birds of prey. This includes at least fifteen marsh harriers and three hen harriers. There is also a peregrine and a merlin on the area.
Last but not least, here is the west end of the reserve:
This area is home to our two pairs of cranes. Hopefully, they will be back for good soon as the breeding season is now on the horizon!
I hope you have enjoyed this insight into what the reserve looks like from above. Happy World Wetlands Day to you all and I look forward to blogging again in a couple of week’s time.
Brilliant! It's much more extensive and diverse than it looks from ground level. I should really look a lot more carefully at some parts of the reserve that I normally just amble past on my way to the next viewpoint. Thank you!