My Birdwatcher's Guide: A Walk at Wicken Fen Nature Reserve

We set off for Wicken Fen after picking up a couple of friends along the way and proceeded up the A6 and then onto the A428 going towards Cambridge. It did not take very long to get to the reserve, about an hour and a bit. We parked the car and put our boots on and got our photography gear together and set off to meet the others at the Visitor Centre.

The Reserve is a National Trust site so we had to pay an entry fee of £7.70 each, which we did and then set off along the pathway into the Reserve itself. The Reserve has lots of Windmills and a very nice walkway which is wheelchair friendly. We looked at our maps and decided to take a certain route around the reserve. We did not see much for the first half an hour but as we proceeded to walk across a field away from the water, we saw a Buzzard and almost immediately afterwards we saw a Skylark floating in the sky, it then decided to do a stoop like a Peregrine does and flew down to the ground. One of the ladies, Sandra, got a great picture of it too. We saw various birds along that pathway until we came to a Car Park which was the Burwell Nature Reserve.

Burwell has a lot of different birds especially Owls but we did not see any at 11am in the morning. We did see Fieldfares and Redwings in the trees and then,

We walked up to a Hide and as we did we caught site of a couple of Roe Deer, which were hiding behind the trees and branches in the field, so we could not get a picture of them.

As we reached the Hide, the heavens opened and a hail storm started, so we ran into the hide and stayed for a little while until it had stopped. There was a rather large lake either side of us and a small open river way in front of us. We saw Little Egrets off to the right, Dabchicks or Little Grebes in the lake section to the right hand side and also a Shoveller Duck with its mate around the reed bed.

We left the Hide and started walking along the pathway, we saw ponies and then Sharon spotted a rather large bird in the distance at the edge of a field off to the left, she has extremely good eyesight. We all scanned the air until we finally saw a Marsh Harrier in the air and then another appeared shortly afterwards. We watched them for ages swooping around in the thermals above the reed bed and surrounding trees. They are quite a large bird and they nest in reed beds, something we found out later after looking in a Bird Book.

We spent about 20 minutes watching the Marsh Harrier flying and then floating in the thermals, they are a very elegant bird and bigger than you think they are. We followed the river round until we found a pathway to another hide, it was a very modern hide and it had a great view over the reedbeds and surrounding lake. We then spotted a large brown bird flying over the reeds off to the right, it was a Bittern. I have never seen a Bittern before and it looked larger than I thought, it flew across and into the reeds and we didn't see it again. They are quite elusive and are difficult to see as they are the same colours as the reedbed itself.

It is a nice reserve and well worth a visit if you love Nature. You can also Hire a Bike out and ride around, something you can do if you have younger children.