My Birdwatcher's Guide: Day Out at Pensthorpe Nature Reserve

It is about a two hour journey from my house to Pensthorpe, I met up with my two colleagues and we set off up the A428 towards Cambridge and onwards to Norfolk. It is quite a nice drive especially when you go through Thetford Forest, they have lovely pine trees and a huge monument at Evesden to commemorate the First World War dead.

We arrived at 10.45am and met up with the other members of my group. We then went into the Shop and used up our Free Entry tickets and then entered the Reserve. As you go in you have a huge lake in front of you which is full of all sorts of Ducks. We went right into the Bird Aviary and was confronted by Avocets, Black Winged Stilts, Redshanks and a Turtle Dove. We were so close to them but they were fine. Avocets are beautiful birds and are the bird the RSPB use on their logo. I never realised how thin their beaks were and how beautiful they were. A first for me.

The Stilts were pretty cool aswell, they seem to be happy because their are some very young birds of all of the species in the Aviary. Unfortunately I couldn't see the Corncrake or Bearded Tit.

We then walked out onto a viewing window on the lake, through a door and we were surrounded by a number of ducks and geese, Mallards, Teal and a very colourful Mandarin Duck, they were all being fed by little kids who seemed to enjoy doing it because they had huge smiles on their faces.

There were also Egyptian Geese, Snow Geese and even a Barnacle Goose in that group and further along the walkway you could see Merganzers and other species of Duck too.

We walked on through the reserve and some of the planting and ponds were really pretty, the lakes were gorgeous too. We walked around until we found a nice Hide which looked across a huge lake and in the distance we could see a Great White Egret hopping around in the water looking for some to eat for its lunch, they are the biggest of the Egrets in this country about the same size as a Grey Heron.

There were also a number of Birds in the fields in the distance, I think some of them may have been Cranes and Geese because they were making a huge amount of noise. There was also a couple of Birds of Prey in the air fighting, one of them may have been a Marsh Harrier. We sat for about half an hour watching all the birds and a huge amount of Lapwings flying around the sky dramatically.

We then set off across a bridge onto a beautiful meadow, which had numerous dragonflies, grasshoppers and even a few butterflies, it really was quite stunning. I would imagine that a few weeks ago in the height of summer it would have been full of wild flowers too.

We then came across a small Bird Hide along a straight pathway under the trees, it was full up but we managed to get in. They had a about 6 bird feeders in a small area outside and they had a lot of visitors too, blue tits, great tits, chaffinch and even a nuthatch, who was regularly visiting one of the bird feeders and who I got quite a good picture of as you can see below.

After a short walk through the woods we came to the Red Squirrel enclosure, I have never seen one before and I must say they are beautiful creatures, unfortunately they don't keep still very long, they speed off up and down the trees in their enclosure and are difficult to get a picture of. They spend most of their lives high up in trees whereas Grey Squirrels tend to be ground feeders which is why the introduction of Pine Martens to some areas has meant a decline in Grey and an upsurge of Reds.

We then came across the beautiful Cranes, they were in small groups, a male, female and a very tall juvenile who seemed to get annoyed with a group of annoying loud Jackdaws in the trees nearby and bellow out a huge horn like sound to tell them to shut up. After a short walk we came to the Flamingo and Crane enclosure, they have just had another 20 flamingoes come in from Slimbridge in Gloucestershire and the area is reasonably new to the reserve but I must say they are magnificent birds, the pink and the colouring they have is beautiful, they eat an abundance of shrimp which is why they are pink otherwise they would be a dull grey colour instead.

Then we went to see another group of Cranes, one of them was very close to the hide window and had a beautiful face, see the picture below. Being a lover of nature, I spoke to it and told it how beautiful it was and it looked at me like I was an idiot. But it was nice to be so close, so who cares.

After an approximately 4 mile walk we were ready for a drink and some food so we went into the Courtyard Cafe and then sat down for about half an hour to get our energy back.

I must say I was impressed with Pensthorpe, it must be amazing when all the Winter Waders come back in November because they have a lot of water where they can land and fly around.