Wicken Fen

Please excuse the months it has been since I last blogged. A master’s degree can rather suck up ones free time. Which is a shame, as my field work on Warton Crag would have offered a lot to blog about. However, please forgive. 

the historic wind pump at Wicken Fen.

Having got back to the Home County, perhaps a little reluctantly, after my year in the wonderfully wet and windswept North West, I took a ride up to the Cambridgeshire fens with my folks for a day on the 1st October. We went to the National Trust’s Wicken Fen, one of the oldest Nature Reserves in the country. A small visitors centre, a glorified souvenir shop with the typical National Trust merchandise at typical National Trust merchandise greeted us. We stepped outside into the sedge fen, where a boardwalk led us through the tall reeds to a small windmill, or wind pump, a small reminder of the times when the fens were being drained for agriculture, when these once vast wetlands shrank, consigning much of their wildlife and the way of life of their people to history.  They once stretched across a huge swathe of East Anglia, the reed and sedge regularly harvested for building materials maintaining the open reed beds, and the people fishing and hunting wildfowl. Cranes used to nest here, alongside a huge range of bird life through the seasons. Here at Wicken, a fragment survives. The reeds still grow tall, sometimes rising to head height as I walked along the boardwalks among them, and they are still harvested to keep the site open. Patches of Carr woodland, with silvery Sallow and Alder trees still offer a habitat to passerine birds. The site was saved by the National Trust in 1899, when part of the reserve popular with the botany department at Cambridge University, and used by insect collectors was bought by the nascent heritage NGO.  On summer nights the banks of the loads were lit up by the ‘Edison lighthouses’ of numerous moth trappers. The Cambridgeshire fens once hosted Large Copper and Swallowtail butterflies, the former now gone from the UK, and the latter confined to the Norfolk Broads, despite attempts to reintroduce both species over more recent decades.

The Common Darter on our boat trip

We opted to explore the site initially by taking a boat ride on the lodes, the man-made waterways that cross the site and eventually link it to the river Cam. The electric vessel made its way among the reeds, as our informed guide brought our attention to the Guilder Roses, red with fruit, that grew among the reeds. Where the reed beds gave way to meadows, the highland cattle, which are left apparently in a wild state, in their small groups, and the Konik geldings which manage the vegetation with their grazing looked on curiously. A male Common Darter dragonfly was our companion for part of the journey, sunning himself on the plastic floor of the boat until he was interrupted and chased off by a rival conspecific. While there were few birds about, there were plenty of dragonflies, Southern and Migrant hawkers, the males with electric blue bands on their slender abdomens and in their eyes patrolled the reeds, wheras Common and Ruddy darters sat motionless on the reeds, waiting to take off and snatch smaller insects out of the air, or engage in aerial combat to fend off their rivals. A buzzard wheeled effortlessly on the thermals in the blue sky, and a few late Swallows and House Martins were still on the wing, many of them juveniles, surely days away from the perilous trip South.  As if to provide a counterpoint to the wildlife, American AWACS aircraft were flying over occasionally all day. 

Konik Horses

NATO Boeing 707 AWACS aircraft.

Our boat eventually returned to the visitors centre and we treated ourselves to the inevitable National Trust coffee and cake, before heading back out along the bank of Wicken Lode. A sign at the visitors centre advised us of a couple of scarce birds visible from one of the hides, and a chat with the lady in the centre informed us of their most recent known location. We walked along the short grass beside the load. Roach and sticklebacks shoaled in the crystal clear water, and a Mute Swan hissed at us as we passed. We made in to the hide after an hour’s walk.  It had a view of the open water of ‘the Mere’ as it is known, a small area of still open water fringed by the ubiquitous Phragmites reeds and Carex sedges. Four Cormorants (Phalacocorax carbo) sat on a log that stuck out of the water, and a number of Mallard and Teal dabbled in the shallows in front of us. out across the water was the bird we were looking for. With a Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) stood beside it, if only to demonstrate the size of the bird, was a Great White Egret (Ardea alba). This is a tall, long-necked and stunning looking heron that is somewhat rare in the UK. Indeed the first breeding pairs in Britain in recorded history bred on the Somerset Levels in 2012.   It stands taller than a Grey Heron, to which it is closely related, and its plumage is bright white, like that of the much smaller Little Egret which colonised the UK in the 1990s.  And here one was, preening itself nonchalently. 

The Great White Egret

I looked through the scope and scanned the bases of the reeds. There was another snipe opposite us, close to the egret, and a couple of smart Godwits, medium-sized waders with very long beaks, wading about and probing in the lake mud. But something at the bottom of the reeds caught my eye. Stripes. Golden stripes, against a dark coloured back, a bird hunkered down among the Phragmites. I wasn’t sure, but I showed the other birders and family members present. We figured it was a Jack Snipe. Seconds later it stood up, and wandered around with the characteristic bobbing motion associated with that species. Two rarities! A couple of smaller waders, periodically flying low across the water as they moved between feeding spots, turned out to be Dunlin, and the ducks were joined by a small party of scruffy looking Shoveller, ducks with massive bills, which arrived with an influx of Teal and Mallards.  We stayed and watched the birds, as the Jack Snipe faded once again into the reeds and his excellent camouflage.

We left the hide not long after the Egret took to the wing and flew off on slow lazy wing beats over the tops of the reeds, assuming the strange, front heavy shape of a heron in flight. we wandered back through the reeds, before setting out, just as the sun was beginning to drop nearer the long, flat fen land horizon. We found a small hide, just a couple of hundred metres from the visitors centre where we could watch a couple of Marsh Harriers, large, scarce birds of prey but increasingly familiar on the wetlands of South Eastern England, hunting over the reeds, wings raised up slightly, riding on the evening thermals. Every so often a coot or moorhen would be flushed from the reeds. These big birds of prey were splended but what happened next was something of a surprise. We wandered out of the hide and onto the board walk, which would take us on a short circuit around the area known as Sedge Fen. I saw ahead of us what looked like another Marsh harrier, sharing the same  profile in flight, so I raised my binoculars to look at it. This bird was moving faster than a Marsh Harrier, and when it stooped after something in the reeds, it moved quicker than any marsh harrier I had seen. Its’ wing tips were black, and its back a very uniform steely grey, apart from a white flash above its tail.  I wasn’t looking at a Marsh Harrier. I was looking at an adult male Hen Harrier, one of the most threatened and rarest breeding birds in Britain. This one wasn't breeding here, the UK population breed in the uplands and fly down to the coast in winter. He was probably passing through to a wintering ground further South; those that winter at Wicken Fen I learned from the informed volunteer at the visitors centre later do not typically arrive until later in the year.

A hen harrier. I had just returned from a year spent beside the Forest of Bowland, last breeding site of Hen Harriers in Britain, without ever seeing one, and here I was in Cambridgeshire, looking at such a beautiful, elegant adult male.

A successful days birding, I thought.

Leighton Moss Again!

Having spent the afternoon and evening in the library, perhaps now is a good opportunity to recount my latest trip to the wonderful woodland and wetland reserve at Leighton Moss on Tuesday. It was a lovely afternoon and not to be wasted on writing up notes, so the window in my schedule was put to use, and I headed back up to the Silverdale AONB and onto the reserve. Passerine activity around the feeders seemed a little quiet compared to last time but there were still plenty of great, blue and coal tits around.  I didn’t hang around too much and headed down to Lillian’s hide where I was greeted by a display of Swan behaviour.

Beautiful Whooper Swan.

A small party of seven or so Whooper Swans had arrived, presumably from Iceland, and looked perfectly at home on the lake. They do not usually winter here but I was advised they sometimes pass through. They were all beautiful, white adults with strong yellow markings on their bills, their smoothly sloping foreheads and straight necks setting them apart from the mute swans even from a distance. However, the resident pair of Mute Swans, the familiar orange-beaked swan of your local park lake, did not seem to be in thrall to the Nordic beauties, instead, they looked distinctly displeased. At first they kept their distance, but raised their wings and drew in their necks, in a threat posture, one that looked almost exaggerated. The aggression was palpable, but initially they seemed to be keeping their distance. They were heavily outnumbered, although individually distinctly larger than the ‘interlopers.’ The Whoopers, for their part, were largely unperturbed, ignoring the angry locals, but sticking close together. One of the mute swans drew closer, and the Whoopers edged slowly away. They may have only arrived that morning after the 18 hour, near transatlantic flight, and had every interest in conserving their energy, with an onward journey, perhaps to Martin Mere, but maybe considerably further afield, still ahead of them.  The mute swans herded the Whoopers into a corner, but one bird seemed determined not to be so restricted, and swam out past the Mute swans, separate from its party. The mute swan which seemed to be displaying the most aggression swam forward towards it, with his head down and his wings raised. The Whooper swam away slowly, nervously, but evidently it was not enough for the Mute swan, who proceeded to raise his wings and run across the water, flapping, toward the whooper, beak poised to grab at the back of the other bird. The Whooper took to the air and flew back to join its co specifics.

Aggressive mute swan.

Having  watched this display of behaviour I decided to persevere to the Greisdale hide, which had been off-limits due to rain on my previous visit. The view from here was gorgeous, with the autumn light shining off the glass-calm water, the leaves in the woodland opposite beginning to assume orange and brown shades, while other species remained green. A heron posed on a narrow spit of land while Teal and Widgeon rested peacefully among the reeds and sedges. The Widgeon seemed to be newly arrived seasonal visitors to me, as none were present last time. Mostly they seemed to be russet brown females and males still bearing some of their eclipse feathers.  There were a few Gadwall too, the females resembling smarter mallards, the males more monochrome ones. I sat for a while. Nothing happened except the place looked beautiful.

The view from the Tim Jackson hide.

I could have enjoyed this scene for some time but instead I headed around to the Tim Jackson hide, in the hope of perhaps seeing some more stuff. Deer were bellowing in the surrounding hills, and myself and the other people in the hide couldn’t help hoping that we might see, even photograph, one of the stags.  A Sparrowhawk flew through and put up some of the smaller birds, which had barely returned when a gorgeous female Marsh Harrier passed by and sent them all skyward again.   A small group of swans flew in, and these, it turned out, were the whoopers again. They sat in the water in front of us, someone in the hide describing these beautiful and fairly uncommon passage migrants as the “bird of the day.” They didn’t stay long, the marauding Mute Swans following them, and eventually persuading them skyward and they flew out toward Morecambe Bay.

Handsome Grey Heron at Leighton Moss.

The light was beginning to fade and I was wondering about getting back toward home before I’d have to drive in the dark. I decided to give these deer a couple more minutes, as the bellowing continued and sounded, although I have little experience, like it was coming closer. I had been sitting there a while, talking about swans and deer with the other stragglers still in the hide, enjoying the gentle chatter of birdy people and the distant bellows, watching one of the keepers in the wooded estate opposite feeding the pheasants, and sitting around, when a few of the birds to my right took to the air. They quickly settled as they reached the far bank; when put to flight by an avian predator, ducks usually stay airborne until the predator is out of sight, but these ones did not stay up long. Whatever had scared them was clearly terrestrial. I looked out in the direction from which the panicked ducks, the bulk of them teal, until recently sleeping soundly, and was rewarded with my first glimpse of a wild, English otter in fresh water!   It wasn’t as big as the beast I saw off the coast of Skye a couple of years ago, so I can only assume it was a juvenile, but it was a sleek, dark, wet creature, long and low to the ground. It seemed to be aware of the commotion it caused in the hide, probably on account of the noises we made, and plunged into the water and away before I could get a photo,  but what a beautiful beast! And what a first!

Scruffy, moulting Teal at Leighton Moss.

I waited a little while for the deer. I managed to confirm how close they were when I realised some of the reeds I could see were not reeds, but the points of the antlers of one of the noisy stags, and several of us waited, with bated breath, it seemed, for the beast to appear and pose for a photo. Inevitably he never did, but by the antlers, which must have had ten points, and rose up above the Phragmites which stood as tall as a man, he was huge.  I contented myself with enjoying the strange noises he was making, watching the birds making their way toward roosting sites against the backdrop of the autumnal woods. Cormorants gathered in a tree in front of me, and a couple of little egrets and a lapwing were among those flying through the sunset. 



It is that time of year, the time the season is changing. I saw no hirundines at Leighton Moss but I did see a small crowd of swallows flying over Freeman’s Pools in Lancaster on Saturday, even as the place was beginning to fill with Teal and other wintering ducks. The previous day I’d watched my first pair of fieldfares of the season, flying, making their “tseeptseep” contact calls as they flew overhead.  With the Whooper Swans at Leighton Moss, it is the time of year when birds are on the move and anything can still turn up anywhere.