Strumpshaw Fen and the Broads

Yet another month has flown by in a flash. Though October has been fairly warm at times, Strumpshaw was still a slightly muddy place to be, especially towards Tower Hide thanks to high tides on the River Yare. The path will be closed if flooding does occur, while the Lackford Run will be closed off for the winter. Meanwhile, as you may know, the clocks went back an hour on Saturday, this means our reception hide has now…

Daubenton Bat Photo Credit: Bev Mulcrone

Watching the swooping antics of bats in autumn is one of the UK's great wildlife spectacles, and one I look forward to every year. Their amazing skill in echolocation and agile flight are an absolute marvel to behold, and when I found out that there was a bat walk being held at Strumpshaw Fen, I couldn't wait to dive into their mysterious world. Equipped with detector, binoculars…

After a fairly hot August, the temperature has since dropped as September progressed. It has become a bit cooler and the rain and the flooding has returned (follow our Facebook page for updates). Autumn is here! Of course, autumn is a great time of year to spot wildlife as migration kicks in. Though we still await something rare to show up, we still had plenty of great wildlife sightings. It is that time again to look…

Image Credit: Elizabeth Dack

Through the dense blanket of phragmites reed echoed a single, sharp, metallic "chink". Having spent much time in reedbeds I was very familiar with this call, and I jerked my head around to search for the perpetrator of this iconic Broadland sound.

There it was again, this time much closer. I fervently grasped my binoculars and scanned the swaying purple-topped stems. It was not…

August 2024 was hot, hot, hot! At least until the penultimate week when it suddenly became very windy and absolutely threw it down on the 24th. Some paths (especially the Lackford Run) were a bit damp underfoot, but nothing a good pair of boots can't handle. Otherwise, it has been by far sunniest and hottest month of the year so far. This month was also full of great wildlife news. So let's get straight into August's…

Dragonflies are scientifically one of the most perfect animals on our planet. They first came onto the scene about 300 million years ago, and have barely changed. Their amazing flight capabilities, aerodynamic bodies and beautifully complex compound eyes did not require change, and the group's design has been unaltered since the dawn of their existence. So when a dragonfly tour came up at Strumpshaw Fen I was keen to…

At just 13 years of age, Oscar Lawrence approached us at Strumpshaw to see if there were any volunteer opportunities. A keen writer, with aspirations to become a wildlife journalist we were pleased to welcome him to the communications team.  

Before you read his very first piece written for our community blog post, I asked Oscar to share a little bit of background, so here goes.....

My name is Oscar Lawrence, and I'd like…

July 2024 has been wet and dry. Earlier in the month, we had a lot of rain. But by the end of the month, it became quite a scorcher. A typical British summer really. When it came to wildlife highlights, there's been plenty to talk about. So, let's get straight into it shall we?

The swallowtail season was nearing its usual conclusion around the first week of July. However, even though the weather wasn't always…

As June ended the sun finally put in an appearance and the temperature rose! However, the month hasn't been like this entirely as the rain poured heavily on and off for at least a week. Many of our trails were left a bit soggy due to all this rain. Wellies or suitable walking boots are still advised. Especially if you are taking a walk around the meadow trail. It is best not to stray from the main paths as it has been…

May seems to be over in a flash, hasn't it? It has been warming up, but due to the amount of rainfall over the month, Strumpshaw remains a place where wellies are advised. The good news is that we have opened the Meadow Trail for the summer, but is very boggy. And after some recent sudden downpours, the Fen Trail and Lackford Run also got quite a soaking. So if you want to visit us, good walking boots or wellies are advised…

April Highlights

There's been plenty of April showers, some cold and windy days and occasionally the sun does peek through. A typical April, really. We did get a couple of surprising floods from some unusual high tides for this time of year, but despite this, Fen Trail and the Woodland Trail are open. However, please bring your wellies if you are planning to walk to Tower Hide and Lackford Run, it is very muddy still…

Spring is in the air once again. The birds are singing and that includes at least two booming bitterns. Earlier in the month, you may have noticed a strange machine (pretty much a floating digger) at work in front of reception. The Truxor, as it is known, was clearing parts of the vegetated edgings of the reserve to promote freshwater movement to flush out saline water caused by all the floods we've been having lately…

It has been cold at times, the river Yare burst its banks on more than a few occasions resulting in path closures and very muddy conditions along the riverbank (keep an eye on our Facebook page for the very latest). Despite that, though, it is starting to feel more springlike. The broad outside Reception is actually attracting more wildfowl than most of this winter so far, including a few coot which have been absent on…

Some years, a bitter February can feel like the depths of winter. This year though, despite a week or so of hard frosts and a spattering of snow, it feels like winter has hardly even been. Perhaps I am forgetting the long nights and the soundless trees already, but so be it! Because today, 16 February, it feels like Spring.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s been plenty things to love about winter - the winter migrants, the…

Can you believe it is the second anniversary since I took over writing these Strumpshaw highlight reports?! It is now my third January to write up and what a crazy month it has been. There's plenty to talk about, so lets get into it.

The weather has once again stolen the headlines. It has been a stormy, chilly and wet start to the new year. Three storms, Henk, Isha and Jocelyn, created a lot of damage to our woodland…

Long Eared Owl 

Another year gone, and what a year. The weather flip-flopped from a cold winter that extended into March after a warm February, a summer that was a bit of a washout after a hot June and an autumn that became the scorching summer we didn't get before becoming stormy with the reserve being hit by a series of bad floods from October until the year's end. A complete contrast to 2022's dry and drought-like…

I hope you've all had a great Christmas. I wish we could say the same for the reserve itself, here at Strumpshaw Fen. This winter has already been a wet and soggy one with flood after flood forcing us to close paths. This continued into December. But on Dec 22nd, we were hit by the highest tides in the reserve's 47 years. There were very few places at Strumpshaw that wasn't completely underwater. We had to close the entire…

November has been another wet month at Strumpshaw. During the first and last weekends of the month, we suffered two massive floods (the latter being one of the worst in recent memory) that left the majority of the reserve being underwater for days at a time. It was so bad on the 25th, in particular, that we had to close the entire reserve.

Between the floods though, there was a point where the paths did dry out enough…

As eight months comes to a close as quickly as it began, I thought it might be nice to create a blog to document my time here. My name is Amber and I arrived here back in March, just before Easter. I’ve met many people during my shifts in reception, whilst helping out with events and out on the reserve but you may also recognise my name as the photo credit for a few of the posts on the reserve social media pages. …

Welcome back to the ‘monthly’ blog from the residential volunteer’s cottage at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen. At the time of writing this, the 2^nd of November, Strumpshaw is mostly underwater. Having run out of odd jobs to help with, I thought it the perfect time to summarise the eventful month that was October.

This spooky month began with some good old-fashioned brush cutting of the reedbed, albeit with a dash…

Happy Halloween! October has been a crazy month hasn't it? One minute it was quite warm with the perfect kind of weather to count the many lizards basking in the sunshine along Sandy Wall. Then the weather became very typical of autumn. It has become much chillier, the trees are starting to change colour and then storm Babet rolled in with days of heavy rain flooding the country. However, we didn't need a storm to flood…

September began as a scorcher. Temperatures rose to what we had in June, around 30°C, in what was an unusual autumn heatwave. Thankfully it cooled down by mid-September. But what about the wildlife? How did they cope? What has turned up? It is time to look back at September's highlights.

Before we get into it, though, a quick heads up that with the return of the autumnal weather, there is a chance of path closures…

Hi again everyone, Joe here back from my holiday. Managed to fit a week’s worth of camping in the Cotswolds, my graduation, and a family holiday all into 20 days.

Rather fittingly, after just graduating as an official marine biologist, my first day back as a residential volunteer was spent at the beach. Myself and the other two ‘resi vols’, along with our duty manager, the team at Winterton and a good handful of…

The summer holidays are almost over. And while the weather hasn't always been favourable, it has been nice to see so many families enjoying our activities, especially using our pond dipping kits and hearing about what they've caught later on. This included plenty of great silver diving beetles, which are truly monstrous, the largest and most ferocious beetles on the reserve. This is just a taster of what this month had…

While Europe was on fire and the rest of the world experienced high temperatures on record, here in Norfolk, It has been pleasantly cooler with plenty of rain and a few thunderstorms. A complete contrast to last month. However, there were some nicer days between the showers and we did manage to get plenty of exciting species turn up at Strumpshaw throughout July (even if it is getting noticeably quiet on the wildlife…