Good morning. Happy Easter to you all! Here are some more details of our Easter Bunny Day on Sunday. The event will begin at 10am and there will be activities taking place until 3pm. There will be a self-guided trail around the Brandon Fen family trail and owl pellet dissection taking place in the visitor centre. 

As well as the activities mentioned above, there will also be short tracks and signs guided walks and a talk…

Good morning! Apologies for the lack of updates recently, there have been technical issues with the blog pages.

As usual, I will start by sharing a few photos that were taken recently on the reserve:

A male reed bunting:

A roe deer:

A pair of great crested grebes:

A pair of whooper swans:

Sunset over the visitor centre:

Image credits: David Mackey

Thank you very much to David for sharing these great…

In my last blog, I wrote about the work we are doing to get more children (and grownups!) connecting with nature when they visit Lakenheath Fen.

We are basing our new trail around the Brandon Fen family trail. I am excited to say that it is making great progress! In the Brecks area of the trail, we are looking to bring to life the often miniature but magnificent Brecks flora that you can find surviving in the almost…

Good morning. Once the solar eclipse was over and the sun actually came out on Friday, it was a lovely day. Emma went down the reserve in the morning. She saw a great white egret and two cranes just west of Joist Fen viewpoint. She also heard two bitterns booming in the same area.

I finally saw my first butterfly of the spring mid-morning when a red admiral was flying around in the staff car park. Emma and I went up…

Good morning. The weather has been a bit hit and miss this week but there has been plenty to see nonetheless. I begin with a few pictures from last weekend:

A skulking water rail at the edge of the visitor centre pond:

A redshank on the washland (alongside the remains of a large pike!):

A pair of great crested grebes:

A flock of little egrets in flight:

Image credits: David Mackey

Thank you very much to…

Please note that the stargazing event on Monday evening is FULLY BOOKED. Unfortunately, we can only accomodate those people who have booked places in advance. We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. 

In my blog post on Sunday, I mentioned that we had our first summer migrants of the year here on Friday, at least two garganeys. This inspired me to dig out the first arrival dates for each species from previous years, just to reacquaint myself with when to expect each species. I have attached the list to this blog post if you are interested.

Typically, shortly after I printed this list off and displayed it in the visitor…

Good afternoon. Waterfowl have featured very prominently here over the last couple of days so the majority of today’s images are wetland themed:

A group of Canada geese in flight:

An action shot of a mute swan:

A great white egret and a little egret:

A group of curlews in flight:

A hunting barn owl:

Image credits: David Mackey

Thank you very much to David for sharing these great images with us.

Good morning. Members of the mustelid family (that includes stoats, weasels and also badgers) have featured quite prominently here at Lakenheath Fen this week. I will start with some pictures of the local stoats:

Here are some pictures of the partially ermine individual:

Image credits: Trev Tabram

...And here is a picture of a more summery looking individual leaping through the air:

Image credit: Matt Walto…

The signs of spring are starting to appear all across the reserve and what a nice sight it is too! Snow drops are blooming along the river bank, birds are singing, blue tits are eyeing up our camera nest box, cranes are dancing, bitterns booming and marsh harriers are displaying their acrobatic sky dancing skills...

Whilst it is very easy to get distracted by all of this, it’s been a busy few weeks as we try and fit…

Good afternoon. There has been so much going on this weekend that I thought I would do an update now. This gives me the chance to share some of the great pictures that have been taken over the weekend:

A hunting barn owl:

A great white egret in flight:

Two pictures of “Little & Large”, one of our resident crane pairs:

Image credits: Matt Walton

Thank you very much to Matt for sharing these…

Good morning. This reserve has never been well known for waders but they have been quite prevalent here this week (for us, anyway!)

 I will start where I left off on Tuesday. A great white egret flew over the visitor centre and there were four oystercatchers on the washland. Two common curlews flew over the visitor centre, which was a reserve year tick for most of the staff! Two whooper swans were also photographed on…

Please note that the interior path around New Fen North (the first area of reedbed) is now closed for the summer months in order to protect breeding birds. It will reopen again in the Autumn. All other reserve paths remain open. If you have any questions or queries about this, please do not hesitate to ring 01842 863400 or e-mail lakenheath@rspb.org.uk; 

Good morning. We have had another great couple of days here. I will begin though with a picture I have not shared yet:

A roe deer grazing alongside the entrance track:

Image credit: Matt Walton

Roy and Emma spent most of the day out on the reserve on Saturday. They saw two great white egrets on the washland along with three little egrets. They also saw a water pipit.

There were at least eight marsh harriers hunting…

Good morning. This week has been great as there has just been so much to see! I will start with some photographs that have been taken in the last week:

Firstly, we have these lovely images of a long tailed tit that were taken by eight year old Amber Wallis:

Image credits: Amber Wallis

Secondly, here are one of our resident pairs of cranes, Little and Large, coming into land in Humphrey’s Paddock:

Image…

Attention regular visitors!   Meeting: Tuesday 24 March, 7pm

Would you like to find out more about our plans for the reserve for the next year or so? If yes, read on!

As a regular visitor to the reserve, you are very important to us.  Your wildlife records are extremely useful, and you often know what wildlife is about more than we do!  We have tried to improve our information flow to you in terms of the website, but we…

Over the last couple of weeks we have begun to see signs of spring. We have had male marsh harriers sky dancing, the cranes have been dancing and many other birds are starting to sing to mark out their territories. As I’m sure you know male bitterns are the Barry White’s of the bird world and produce a wondrous low booming sound to mark out their territories. At this time of the year the male bitterns have not quite…

Good afternoon. I've got a busy day planned tomorrow so, slightly earlier than usual, here are some recent sightings.

Suzanne went for a walk at lunchtime on Thursday and saw two great white egrets from New Fen viewpoint. She also saw a stonechat perched up on the riverbank.

The reserve team were also busy building a willow fence between the path up to the washland and the pond dipping area. Here is the finished…

Good morning. With the exception of Monday, the weather has been really good for birds of prey this week. It has been sunny and breezy which have meant that we have had great views of them.

The conditions were especially good on Tuesday morning and local photographer Matt Walton was out and about taking photos:

Some very variable common buzzards:

A hunting marsh harrier:

A perched up kestrel:

Image credits…

I returned to the reserve yesterday after two weeks "down south". I was amazed by how much things have changed: lots of our resident birds are now singing and both pairs of cranes have (finally) returned! 

Before I get on to some recent sightings, here are some pictures that were taken recently on the reserve by local photographer Ron Smith:

Two robins having a territorial dispute: 

A group of "wild swans…

One of the things we have wanted to do via the blog is to not only keep you informed when we have undertaken work here on the reserve but also to let you know some of the things we are planning to do to enhance the reserve for wildlife and for our visitors.

Next week we are planning to fell a small number of poplar trees in the West Wood.  The West Wood, like the Trial Wood and the East Wood are remnants of what was once…

As the sun started to rise on Sunday morning, myself and Katherine were ready and waiting at Joist Fen viewpoint, in order to see how many cranes had roosted on the reserve the previous evening. There had been regular sightings of two pairs during the week, but we weren’t sure if they were heading off elsewhere at night...

The early start was definitely worth it though, as we were able to confirm that both pairs…

Firstly, the roadworks on the B1112 are complete, and access to and from the reserve is now much nicer!

Now on to more interesting things!  I'm quite lucky working as a Warden on a fantastic nature reserve.  My job means that I have, fairly unrestricted, access to every nook and cranny of the reserve, and this can often provide opportunities for getting extremely close to wildlife. 

Take last Monday for example.  I…

If you are planning to visit the reserve in the next few days, please be aware that there are roadworks just north of the reserve entrance.  This means that the road will be closed between Wangford Road and Hockwold, between 9 am and 4 pm.   However, we have been told that there will still be access to the reserve during this time.  If you are coming from the north, the diversion is via Hockwold, Weeting and Brandon, pick up…

This blog post has been inspired by several factors:

1. It’s my last blog post for a couple of weeks
2. Its World Wetlands Day tomorrow
3. It’s the year of the reserve’s twentieth birthday

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…