Up to now the Fen Hide has had a dubious reputation, indeed there have been numerous occasions when you could sit in there and see virtually nothing. It has always been a place where you needed patience and sometimes your waiting can really pay off.
This month I've been lucky to get excellent views of a bittern, kingfisher, water rail, hen harrier and several marsh harriers from this hide, but have not been fortunate enough to spot the barn owl that others have seen. What the hide has lacked in the past has been common birds to entertain you while you waited for one of the stars to show up. Hopefully we have now gone some of the way to improving this. One of our volunteers has made a bird table from wood salvaged from the big tidal surge and this he has put up just to the left of the hide. As soon as the birds have got used to feeding there, our birdwatchers and photographers should get some nice close-ups.
When you walk along the East Trail look out for the deer tracks on the wet mud, most of these will be muntjac but you may find some made by Chinese water deer.
We are currently in the process of creating a wildlife garden the volunteers at the very start of this walk next to the visitor centre. It is intended that this garden should represent different habitats found on the reserve ranging from the beach to wet woodland. Hopefully this, plus several other much smaller jobs we have thought of along the east trail, will be done at zero cost, so far so good.
Over the next month watch how the garden evolves and look out around Patsy's reedbed for frogs and toads, seedlings starting to pop up in the bare areas left after last autumn's sea defence work, harriers coming in to roost, hunting barn owls, particularly after wet nights, and search through the gadwall, pochard and tufted duck for red-crested pochard, goldeneye, scaup or if you are exceptionally lucky, a smew.
Good luck.
Ray