Good morning! Its Friday the thirteenth! In order to celebrate this auspicious day, I thought I would showcase some of the weird and wonderful bugs that are calling the reserve home at the moment. Some rare birds will also feature and if you are looking for bird sightings, I will do a more comprehensive sightings blog on Sunday morning.

I will however start with a very big bird that was seen over the west end of the…

It was rather warm this weekend wasn't it?! As usual, shortly after I finished my blog post on Friday, we received reports of some great sightings from the reserve! A turtle dove flew over Joist Fen viewpoint and a honey buzzard flew south west over West Wood. Typical!

There was plenty seen over the course of the day and birds of prey were conspicuous. There were at least five marsh harriers over Joist Fen viewpoint…

Good morning. Its been another busy week so I have mainly been in and around the visitor centre. However, I did get out for a walk on Monday morning...

I walked down to the poplar woods and as I walked around the back of Trial Wood, I photographed this splendid four-spotted chaser at the side of the path:

Image credit: David White

At this point, I have to confess that the main reason why I came down was to photograph…

Join the Race for wildlife at RSPB Lakenheath Fen - Sunday 19 October

Enter online via: www.wegottickets.com 

Please also complete a registration form (attached below) and email it to us: lakenheath@rspb.org.uk

or post to: Race for wildlife 2014, RSPB Lakenheath Fen Nature Reserve, Station Road, Brandon, Lakenheath, Suffolk, IP27 9AD 

Optional - ask us for a sponsor form and help raise further money for the RSPBs…

This week is National Volunteers’ Week so we’re taking this opportunity to thank our amazing volunteers who do so much for us here at Lakenheath Fen.  Our volunteers do many varied roles: manning the visitor centre; helping at events; being car park marshals; speaking to visitors out on the reserve; surveying; working in all weathers doing hard graft, and generally turning their hand to anything.  We simply…

The last week seems to have passed in a blur but thankfully, there is still a list of reserve sightings in front of me to report.

I will begin though with some lovely pictures that we have been sent this week by visitors:

A smart common whitethroat:

Image credit: Brian Anderson

A bittern from below:

Image credit: Matt Walton

A female scarce chaser:

Image credit: Charles Whitfield King

Thank you very much…

It’ll come as no surprise to learn that it’s been a bit wet here at Lakenheath Fen over the past couple of days.  This hasn’t stopped us getting on with our outdoor work, although admittedly some time has been spent in the office drying out.  Yesterday was rather wet but we had scheduled in a particular job that needed two reserve staff and we had to take advantage of the fact that two of us were free at…

Good morning. As usual, I will start where I left off with some sightings from Wednesday. Our first scarce chasers of the year were on the wing alongside Trial Wood and at least 12 hobbys were over Trial Wood. A kingfisher was also seen near Joist Fen viewpoint.

As Ali mentioned in her blog post on Friday, there have been plenty of bittern sightings this week including one that landed in front of Mere Hide on Wednesday…

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, things have been pretty busy here with both wildlife and people. There was a phenomenal mixture of birds of prey around on Saturday. There were at least 27 hobbys over Joist Fen viewpoint and a male Montagu's harrier flew over. There were also reports of a goshawk and a black kite flying over which is very exciting indeed. 

One of our locals, Tim James was here on Sunday…

Its great to be out on the reserve at the moment as the sunny and warm weather really encourages lots of species of wildlife to show themselves. Here are some lovely photos from last weekend:

A close up view of a wren:

A posing sedge warbler:

A common whitethroat striking an "interesting" pose:

An "action shot" of a greylag goose:

Image credits: Andrew Ward

Thank you very much Andrew…

It’s been an exciting morning here at Lakenheath Fen – the fish arrived!

4,000 rudd appeared under the supervision of Chris from Framlingham Fisheries, near Ipswich.  During transportation they were supplied with oxygen directly into their water supply.  An aerator can be used as well but these create quite large bubbles.  As our fish are only one to two years old and therefore quite small, the aerator wasn’t…

The weather has been really unpredictable for the last couple of days but during the better weather, there has been plenty to see.

Here are a couple of pictures from earlier on in the week:

A cuckoo in flight:

A common whitethroat:

Image credits: David Sherlock

Many thanks to David for sending these great photos over.

Ali was out and about on Friday and saw a common frog in one of the bays at the southern edge…

Good morning. I have been sent some amazing pictures this week so without any further ado, here they are:

Two cracking shots of bearded tits that were taken recently on the approach to Mere Hide:

Image credits: Brian Anderson

Local photographer Matt Walton has also sent in these great pictures of some of the local hobbys:

Image credits: Matt Walton

Thank you very much to Brian and Matt for sharing these…

You may or may not know that it’s Hedgehog Awareness Week this week (04-10 May), organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) so this is my 'hedgeblog’! The aim of the week is to highlight the problems faced by hedgehogs in this country and to let us know what we can do to help them. You may have heard in the media that hedgehogs are not doing very well. Staggeringly, the population looks…

We had the first half of our "talon spotting" event yesterday and there were lots of things to see which thankfully included some birds of prey. Before I tell you about what the team and I saw, here are a few fantastic photos that local photographer Tim James took on the reserve yesterday:

A hovering common tern:

An "incoming" greylag goose:

A sedge warbler out in the open:

A drinker mot…

Please note that the dawn chorus walk on Monday 5 May is now fully booked. Unfortunately, we can only accommodate those people who have booked places in advance. We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. 

Good morning. I went for a walk with a colleague and friend on Sunday afternoon and there was just so much to see! We kept getting distracted by invertebrates and here are a few pictures of what we found:

A red headed cardinal beetle:

A drinker moth caterpillar:

A freshly emerged damselfly, which after much head scratching, we decided was a variable damselfly:

Image credits: David White

We also tried to photograph…

We’ve been a bit office bound recently working on the reserve annual report so just a brief overview of work this week.  We had another bittern listen last Thursday, luckily the rain came beforehand so it was a lovely morning surveying the reedbeds.  Our peak count is still seven from a couple of weeks back.  The male bitterns don't play any part in the nesting and chick rearing process so even if they have mated already…

I am pretty sure that somebody has seen a first on the reserve this morning: Two visitors were watching a bittern feeding at the edge of the pool in front of Mere Hide when suddenly, they saw it boom in front of their very eyes! I know that this behavior has been witnessed at RSPB Minsmere in the past, but unless anybody knows otherwise, this is definitely a Lakenheath Fen first! 

The same visitors also saw plenty of other…

I have to admit; sometimes I struggle to condense a couple of days worth of sightings into just one blog post! I have in front of me a MASSIVE list of sightings from the last week so I will try my best! I will begin though with a couple of photos that have been taken on the reserve recently:

A cute little bank vole that was behind the visitor centre:

Image credit: Tim James

Some of the lovely lady's smock that…

Please note that the Brecks and Fens bonanza event on Sunday has been cancelled due to lack of bookings. We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. 

This morning I was down in Botany Bay and it’s always a pleasure to be there.  I know I’ve said this before but Botany Bay is a lovely place to walk around – if you’re feeling extra energetic one day do make sure you pay it a visit as not many people do.  You can reach it via the public footpath along the riverbank - there is no circular route, it’s a "there and back again" walk!

I have to admit, it took a fair bit of encouragement to get out of bed this morning after having Easter Saturday and Sunday off. However, as my father and I drove into work, we could see that the sun was hidden behind a cloak of mist. This immediately put a smile on my face, as I knew we were going to have a great walk this morning! I took a few pictures of the sun coming up between the visitor centre and Joist Fen viewpoint…

Good morning! It was a great day for photography on Sunday so I will begin with some of the great pictures that were taken on the reserve:

A skulking but loud grasshopper warbler:

Image credits: Les Bunyan

An equally skulking (but even louder!) Cetti's warbler:

Image credit: Rob Nichols

...And a burly common buzzard soaring in the thermals:

Image credit: Rob Nichols

Also on Sunday, a single crane