When it comes to the National Trust, naturalists get a bit sniffy when they manage reserves. Most people think they should stick to stately homes. And then there are the featureless farmlands they own in our National Parks. They could do more.
And so with the second site of our trip to the fens we headed to Britain's oldest nature reserve, Wicken Fen. I have maybe been to this site once over twenty years ago, and I wasn't too impressed. I thought it was badly managed, the area was overgrown, and fairly boring, just walking beside a lode. Also there wasn't much birdlife. Which could also be said of today's visit.
When we arrived the car park was overflowing, the café had a long queue, and the feeling was this was going to be hell. But as with most places, go away from the visitor's facilities, and the people soon disappear. And so we saw few people from then on.
The original area of the reserve had never been drained, whilst the area we were to go around had, many years ago, and due to shrinkage of the peat was a couple of metres lower down. One side of a lode, or dyke, was level with the water whilst the other side was well below.
We saw few birds. It was maybe over half an hour in that we saw our first bird, a STONECHAT, across the lode in a konik pony grazed area of fen. We had decided to go to the Adventurer's Fen area of the place, which with its meres, reedbeds and grazing marsh allowed for the greatest verity of birds to be seen.
The mere held a small selection of ducks mainly TEAL, with some MALLARDS, SHOVELERS and COOT. It was surrounded by a large reedbed but there wasn't much there. A CETTI'S WARBLER briefly burst into song, at the moment trying to find his voice for the spring. The path took us from reeds to wet grassland with large areas of open water looked over by hides. These were mainly dominated by WIGEON, with smaller numbers of SHOVELER and a pair of PINTAIL.
The path took us to the edge of the reserve, providing a contrast with the barren intensely managed farmland there, where nothing lived. A SPARROWHAWK dashed across a dyke, spooking the local FIELDFARES into the air.
New Guinea Fen must have held thirty KONIK PONIES. KONIKS are an old Polish breed of pony, that flourishes in wetlands, keeping them from overgrowing, and are therefore found in reserves all over the country, including Minsmere. It is an unintensive method of maintaining the land.
After we had finished the circuit of Adventurer's Fen we returned and with the light disappearing we decided to go to the oldest part of the reserve, Sedge Fen for a quick look. Two MUNTJACS were feeding in a grassy field completely oblivious to us, they must get use to all the people. We walked on the boardwalk went into the hide and in the twilight saw a BARN OWL flying right a the back of the expanse of sedge beds. As we walked back to the car park I thought that was it, it was alright, nothing special. I was noting how surprising it was we didn't see a single harrier...
And in the almost dark two shapes appeared, HARRIERS! then they came below the tree line and I could see their colours - two male HEN HARRIERS! They briefly flew around for a while before settling to roost, with one male choosing the area between the boardwalk and the visitor's centre. An amazing sight.
So a great and dramatic end to the day, which just about paid for what was a fairly disappointing visit out to the fens. We couldn't help it with Welney, that was out of everyone's hands, but Wicken could have been better, it does look under managed, and if the site was owned by the RSPB you would think it would have been more productive for wildlife.
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