Hello and welcome to this weeks’ blog. The annual Big Garden Birdwatch is fast approaching (29-31 January) and for many wildlife enthusiasts and their families it will represent a small piece of normality- something to do which doesn’t need to be affected by Coronavirus and it’s far-reaching effects on our lives. For those of our visitors not familiar with the survey, if you have a garden or a green space viewable from…

At the start of a new year we are building up sightings very quickly, with bearded tits making an appearance on 2 January, when our Site Manager Dave saw a small party of six near the Photography Station. This follows hot on the heels of an elegant and beautiful male hen harrier and eight cranes seen in the evening of New Years’ Day by Dave’s predecessor, Norman Sills, from Joist Fen Viewpoint. Yesterday evening (7 January…

Hello to one and all and welcome to the last blog of 2020- today is the last day the Visitor Centre will be open for a while, but every day over the Christmas and New Year period the visitor car park, all of the trails and Mere Hide will remain open for your enjoyment. Below is a list of what will be open and when between now and the New Year:

21-23 December: Visitor Centre CLOSED, Accessible Toilet OPEN

24 December -…

Well as I write today's blog I can see that the feeders in front of the Visitor Centre are a hive of activity, with a non-stop stream of visiting birds, the commonest of which are blue tits and great tits but two male greenfinch, plenty of coal tits, a couple of marsh tit and a few reed bunting are visiting regularly too. In the cold snap of last week we had a regular male brambling, but he seems only to visit when…

Hello to all and welcome to this weeks' blog. While we haven't seen our cranes much lately- just a sighting every two or three days, last Sunday (22 November) we had five here and they were showing well from Joist Fen viewpoint, looking south west. It is likely to have been our 2020 family (pair A2 and their chick) and another pair, which may or may not have been our other pair- there was lots of bugling going…

Hello and welcome to this weeks' blog. The weather over the last few days has been very mixed- on the sunny days between 9th and 12th we had multiple sightings of peacock and red admiral butterflies and common darter dragonflies each day, and it should be possible to see these in the coming week if we have more mild days. Last night (12th) we set a moth trap and caught just one moth- a feathered thorn- although a…

Hello and welcome to this week's blog. I thought i'd start with the moths we caught last night on the reserve- it was a mild, calm night with cloudy skies and at a low of 8c, a good night to set the trap! Our list for the night was:

- November moth x 5

- Mottled umber x 1

- Large wainscot x 3

- Feathered thorn x 1

- Red-line quaker x 2

- Dark chestnut x 1

- Setaceous hebrew character x 1

- December moth x 2

-…

Hello and welcome to this weeks' blog. If you have visited us today or plan to do so in the next few weeks you should notice a big difference at Mere Hide- all the reeds surrounding it have had their autumn haircut! This is one of the tasks we leave until the breeding season for birds has well and truly passed- reed and sedge warblers as well as whitethroats often have late broods and can be raising young into September…

Welcome to this weeks' blog- the star highlight has been the whooper swans with a high count of 1,776 birds into roost overnight on 19 October- our bird ringer Simon Evans was there early in the morning to count them as they woke up and flew off. Here's some lovely photos taken by a visitor recently of the whooper swans on their roost site- the Washland:

 Photo credit: All three of these beautiful whooper swan…

Hello to one and all and welcome to the latest blog. This week has been peppered with lovely moments- we have had the first big groups of whooper swans on the Washland (300+ early this morning, 15 October and 294 on 12 October), redwing in an almost constant stream overhead and a spectacular, if slightly worn, clifden nonpariel moth in a trap that Katherine set on the evening of 13 October. This is only our second record…

Hello all,

In my blogs there's normally more text than images, but during the past week or so we've been spoilt for choice by visitors that have kindly sent us in their images from their visits here at RSPB Lakenheath Fen, so I thought i'd make this blog all about those wonderful images. To start with, although the variety of insects still out during autumn is a bit limited, Chris Robinson- a regular visitor, got this…

Hello to all of our supporters and thank you to those of you who have visited us in the past week. Your visits mean a lot to us- it is lovely to hear what you have seen during your walk, it really helps us when you spend a pound or two on refreshments or simply it's just good to know you have enjoyed the reserve and what it has to offer! Our aim here is to help people connect with wildlife and the history and story of…

Just a quick note for anyone planning to visit the reserve this Thursday (17 Sept).  There will be a bit of disturbance for a short time in front of Mere Hide from 9.30 - 10.30am.  This is so we can strim back some unruly vegetation that is obscuring the view to the kingfisher perches.  Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Many thanks,

Katherine

I thought i'd start this week's blog with a couple of photos from our moth trap which we set last night at the reserve- although at this time of year the trap is quite quiet, with fewer moths than during high summer, the range of species changes and it can be really interesting to see species that have camouflage especially suited to the fallen leaves and rustic colours of autumn. The star of the show was the scarce …

This past week marks a change in the seasons- it is the first week of autumn and the reserve is changing accordingly. Many mornings it's a bit chilly, damp but lovely and bright! 

It has been a good few days for sightings of our regular favourites, including common cranes and bitterns from Joist Fen viewpoint. We have up to nine cranes seen at the moment, which is made up of our two pairs which spent the summer with…

While the weather this week hasn’t always been ideal for wildlife watching, we have had plenty of visitors on drier days, many of whom have been reporting their sightings to us after their visit and for this we are always very grateful!

On Friday we had another osprey sighted by one of our volunteers from Joist Fen- this could well be the same bird that visited us around a week ago, or a new bird stopping off her…

Hello to all our visitors from a windy and wild Lakenheath Fen! Today these swirling winds are stirring things up and depositing a very fine layer of black peat dust over everything! It is a new experience for me and reminds me of what it might have been like during the industrial revolution in many of our towns and cities, except this soot is of a different origin! My colleagues have told me the more technical term for…

Welcome to this week’s blog, and to start with here is a selection of the moths we caught in the trap last night. We had another specimen each of marbled clover and tawny wave, which are both specialities of the local area. Marbled clover caterpillars feed on the flowers and unripe seeds of a variety of plants which grow well in the Brecks, such as white campion, common toadflax and red clover. Tawny wave is classified…

This week has been a brilliant one for butterflies and dragonflies, who love the hot weather, even if we don't always! Our commonest butterflies this week have included red admiral and peacock, gliding across paths and visiting hemp agrimony and buddleia- their favourite flowers here. Closer to the ground on the viper's bugloss, which is coming to the end of it's flowering period, small skipper, Essex ski…

Hello to all and welcome to our latest blog. We have had a busy week here implementing changes to how to work to bring back more of what we used to do here at the reserve prior to lockdown. The changes start inside the building- now we have had our coffee machine recommissioned, we can offer the full range of coffee, teas and hot chocolate as we used to do, plus cold drinks (bottled water and Breckland Orchard Posh Pop…

Hello and welcome to our latest blog- usually these are all about sightings but today we need to ask for help in another way. Since we reopened about a month ago, we have installed a Welcome Point at the side of the Visitor Centre to welcome visitors to the reserve in a COVID-secure way. We keep a mobile reserve map, sightings board and a volunteer or staff member is always there during our opening hours of 9am to 5pm…

Hello to all of our supporters, old and new, and welcome to the latest blog from Lakenheath Fen! This week the view from the Washland has been spectacular, with a wide variety of different wading birds recorded, and this is all down to it being the breeding season. While a few of the species up there- avocet, redshank and lapwing- have bred with us this year, there are a few 'extras' making cameo appearances for a few…

Families that visit us regularly at the reserve will be familiar with our usual activities on offer for children- we usually hire out activity backpacks, spotter sheets, bug hunting and pond dipping kits, as well as having a table of indoor crafts for rainy days. However, with the hygiene restrictions due to COVID-19 we sadly can't do this at the moment. So, we have come up with a range of activities children can do around…

On the back of a couple of very hot days here, our butterfly and dragonfly lists for the year have risen dramatically. Now we are up to 16 species of butterfly:

Brimstone

Orange tip

Common blue

Brown argus

Small copper

Small white

Large white

Small skipper

Large skipper

Meadow brown

Ringlet (25 June)

Painted lady

Small tortoiseshell

Red admiral

Comma

Peacock

And the following 15 species of dragonfly:

Common blue dams…

Welcome to the first sightings blog in a very long time- it is lovely to be able to write again about what wildlife we have on the reserve at the moment and what you should be able to see if you visit us. During the lockdown, our knowledge of what the wildlife were up to was very limited. But, in the past week it has been clear that the reserve is packed with wildlife who have been making the most of having the reserve…