On the last official day of Summer, you can definitely see signs of two seasons on the reserve at once. Migrant birds like Hobby and Swallow are still here, and as you walk around the trails it’s easy to hear Blackcap, Whitethroat and Reed warbler singing. However, passage migrant birds have been spotted too. Whilst it’s still easy to find dragonflies and butterflies, more autumnal bugs like ladybirds, Dock…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog. Here I will aim to give a quick round-up of the weeks' wildlife highlights, ahead of the weekend. Kingfishers have been showing particularly well across the reserve, with sightings most days from various places, notably the pools at New Fen (from the viewpoint shelter), Mere Hide and the Visitor Centre. Two Hobbies were also spotted hunting in the air above Mere Hide yesterday…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog! Before we cover the usual wildlife sightings and happenings on the reserve, i'd like to announce on behalf of the reserve team (and the reserve itself!) that we have one successfully fledged Common crane chick! He, or she, is the juvenile of pair B2, our newer (and presumed younger) pair of cranes. So far, most of what we have seen of the young family has been via trail camera…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog. It's been a good few weeks since the last one, regrettably, as various other projects and tasks have got in the way. But, there's plenty to see on the reserve at the moment- we have a wealth of butterflies and dragonflies flitting about along the trails, Kingfishers being more often seen now at Mere Hide, and there's still a handful of Hobbies about. Recent rain has helped…

Hello and welcome to our latest blog. As I write this, the reserve is alive with birdsong! As well as the resident Blackbirds, Song thrushes, Cetti's warblers, Wrens and Robins, joining the chorus is Whitethroat, Willow warbler, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Garden warbler too. We have one or two Nightingales and Grasshopper warblers too, but these are proving trickier to pin down- apart from one more reliable Nightingale…

On the reserve, Spring is well underway now with many migrant birds making their first landfall in recent weeks. The first dates we have so far (21 April) are below:

Avocet 8 February Sand martin 17 March Garganey 18 March Wheatear 22 March Swallow 1 April Willow warbler 1 April Sedge warbler 14 April House martin 14 April Nightingale 15 April Reed warbler 15 April Whitethroat 15 April Hobby …

Now we are well into Spring, it is a joy to be on the reserve, especially on warm sunny days like today. It’s a bit breezy but that hasn’t stopped the chiffchaffs from singing- there is one near the Visitor Centre (by the bug hotel) and it’s difficult to go for even a short walk without hearing one now! We have had a few sand martins spotted in flight over the Washland too, and the migrant garganey

…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog. We are certainly noticing the longer evenings and the extra heat in the sun (when it isn't windy or cloudy!) and so is the wildlife. On 15 February we recorded our first butterfly of 2023- a peacock in flight near the Washland Viewpoint. We've had a bit of colder weather since but it won't be long before we record our first brimstone, small tortoiseshell or red admiral flying…

With it being World Wetlands Day today (2nd February) it seems an appropriate time to announce to you the addition of new land to the Lakenheath Fen reserve. Thanks to the support of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, a charitable trust, and Morgan Sindall Group, a leading UK construction and regeneration group, we’ve been able to purchase 54 hectares of arable farmland adjacent to existing land which the RSPB owns…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from Lakenheath Fen. This morning (22 January) we arrived to a reserve shrouded in hoar frost and fog that has not yet lifted (12 noon!)- probably because the air is calm and very cold. It was -6c here at 8am and is now at -2c. Everything is covered in frost, and it looks absolutely beautiful- every branch, leaf, tiny plant and fence post is glittering with ice particles. It makes…

Hello to all and welcome to the first blog of 2023. The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, who was the God of beginnings, endings and transitions. In January we might look back at the year that has passed, and ahead to 2023, and this will be the theme of this blog too. This morning (4 January) I completed the list of bird species recorded on the reserve in 2022- we seem to have had 141, compared to 155…

Hello to all and welcome to the first blog in a few weeks. Various other things have got in the way of me sitting down to update you all about the wildlife sightings and news from the reserve recently, but here we are at long last. A fair few of our November days so far have been wet ones- sometimes windy too- and although this doesn't make for quite as nice a walk as a sunny blue-sky day, we have welcomed every drop…

Welcome to our latest blog. We have a few bits of news to share with you, but I will start with the latest wildlife sightings from the reserve as that's the best bit!

The wildlife at Lakenheath Fen

The past couple of weeks have seen the departure of a few summer visitors to the reserve- such as what is likely to be the last hobby sighting of 2022 (11 October) and possibly the last house martins (13 October). Other…

I thought that given we have seen quite a few changes in recent days on the reserve- all related to autumn- that it was time to write another blog. Strange white domes of various sizes have begun to appear across the reserve trails, especially in shady spots with a build-up of leaf litter. Once they spring up, they grow quickly and the biggest on the reserve (along the entrance track) that we know of is about 40cm wide…

I thought i'd devote this weeks' blog to the amazing array of images kindly shared with us by our visitors. As I write this, we had half a day of rain on 25 August- the first real amount for months- and although we need hundreds of thousands of litres more to fill the reserve, it may have saved us from drying out completely at spots such as New Fen, and was so desperately needed. We hope for more in the coming weeks,…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog. Tomorrow I will talk about our wildlife in a separate blog, but for today my keyboard is devoted to telling readers everything they may want to know about our upcoming Race for Wildlife; what it is like, what to expect, and most importantly- how it helps our wildlife!

Almost every year in early autumn we hold our Race for Wildlife- I say 'almost' because for two years we have had to…

News from the reserve

As I write this blog, I hope we are on the cusp of some rainfall at long last, which is forecasted for early next week (15-16 August). It is badly needed, because the reserve has never been so dry in it's 27-year history. The main pool at New Fen is 46cm below what it was on this day last year, so we really are struggling for water. At the moment, we have enough to keep the fish and invertebrates…

Hello to all and welcome to the latest blog. As you will well know yourselves (especially thanks to last weeks' heatwave!) we've had some very warm weather in the southern half of the UK and we reached 40c here in the sunshine, as most did! What we sadly didn't see as it cooled off was any rain, which is what we really need- the reserve is incredibly dry. If you visit us soon you will see the Washland has only very little…

Hello to all and welcome to the latest blog. We eagerly await the arrival of our new moth traps on Tuesday, but we just couldn't wait that long so Katherine kindly brought her own trap in last night and we caught a huge variety and number of moths. For those enthusiasts, the list is below:

Setaceous Hebrew character 6 Ghost moth 1 Eyed hawkmoth 15 Poplar hawkmoth 11 Lobster 1 Elephant hawkmoth 2 Ci…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from the reserve. As I write this, it is drizzling on-and-off outside and we had 45mm of rain overnight which the reserve really needed, after a dry winter and spring. 1 June was officially the first day of summer, so here's to hoping the season ahead gives us plenty more much-needed rain. This week has been an interesting one- with three scarce species putting in an appearance in…

Wildlife news

Hello and welcome to the latest blog. We have noticed a proliferation in flying insects of all kinds across the reserve recently. Butterflies, dragonflies, mayflies, beetles and hoverflies are everywhere you look especially on warm days. It is getting tricky now to find a St. Mark's fly, which is a very stark contrast to the abundance of them around St. Mark's Day (25 April annually) when they were everywhere…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog- and there is an awful lot to mention! We have nearly all of our Spring migrants back now, and the arrival dates are below:

Avocet

8 February

Dunlin*

9 March

Bittern (booming)

13 March

Garganey

19 March

Ruff*

21 March

Black-tailed godwit*

23 March

Sand martin*

6 April

Swallow

7 April

Sedge warbler

8 April

Willow warbler

11…

Hello and welcome to the latest round-up from the team here at Lakenheath Fen- we have been spoilt for sightings lately, especially on the Washland with a wealth of ducks up there, including up to 56 avocet, 2 garganey, 4 shelduck, 3 ruff, 109 black-tailed godwits and a little egret, all on 30 March. Black-tailed godwit numbers have reached as high as 300, and we believe that at least one of them had a coloured leg-ring…

I think we can call this the first blog of Spring 2022, given that we have now had a couple of migrant birds in and a few insects on the wing too. Our first record this year of chiffchaff came on 7 January but since the beginning of March, they have been heard singing and spotted by visitors almost every day, during spells of warm weather. As with blackcap, it is impossible to know if these 'early birds' are genuine migrants…

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from our little piece of Fenland. We have been gifted with some really beautiful days here in February so far- we've had lots of sunshine but some cold starts to those sunny days! And the past couple of days have seen plenty of wind, which the marsh harriers love- at least eight were in the air across the reserve yesterday when Dave, Luke and myself went out on a drive through…