I last blogged on Saturday afternoon, just before I had a very successful evening looking for bats with the Lakenheath Fen Kingfishers Wildlife Explorers club. As I said in my post, I had already been lucky enough to see an otter earlier on in the day and a lucky visitor had also seen one from New Fen viewpoint. Sadly, no photos of it were forthcoming so here is a picture of one that was taken very early one morning in June this year:
Image credit: Nick Patterson
I didn't know it at the time, but my chance encounter with an otter was the start of what would turn out to be probably one of my best days of mammal watching in Britain ever!
We headed out on the reserve with local bat enthusiast Bill Landells, 11 children and their associated adults. It didn't take us long to find our first bats. There were at least two common pipistrelles whizzing around overhead at the eastern edge of East Wood. It was even light enough to catch glimpses of them as they began their evening's feed.
We then reached the gap between East Wood and Trial Wood, near New Fen viewpoint. Here we were treated to the distinctive "clip-clop" sound of a noctule flying back and forth. When we got to the viewpoint itself, there was a feeding group of common pipistrelles close overhead.
We decided to walk back via the grassy path around East Wood. Although there was a large feeding group of soprano pipistrelles feeding overhead, the children seemed more interested in the large variety of spiders that they kept finding! These were mostly marbled orb weavers, with a few garden spiders mixed in for good measure.
Just before we got back to the centre, another noctule was flying around overhead and a few more common pipistrelles were feeding nearby.
When we got back to the veranda overlooking the visitor centre pond, the view was just phenomenal with the sky full of stars. There were also large numbers of bats feeding over the pond. These were mostly common pipistrelles, with a few soprano pipistrelles mixed in.
Although we didn't hear any Daubenton's, this was more than made up for by a "swim past" of a water vole that swam right across the pond, illuminated by Bill's red torch.
All in all, it was a great evening and it was fantastic to see and hear some of the special mammals that call the reserve home. Please keep an eye on our events page for details of mammal watching events in the future.