Spring Comes To The Fens

It's time to turn our backs on the woodland that has entertained us through the last few posts and venture forth into the Fenland. First of all we'll go just north of the village of Fen Drayton where the River Great Ouse is poised to empty its waters over the wide flat plain; not that it's allowed to do that any more, of course. Nowadays it's all neatly channelled and confined as it crosses the agricultural land.

Fen Drayton Lakes:

But here, where the river gravels have been removed, the flooded pits give some idea of the watery world of past times; similar enough to attract ducks and wildfowl at least.

With the gentle turn into spring come many changes: cattle are once again turned out on the riverside meadows, leaves begin to hide the bare branches, flowers appear, the winter ducks fly north and from the south new avian friends arrive to populate the hedgerows with birdsong.

In winter these lakes were home to huge flocks of ducks, but now there are gulls noisily planning to nest on the islands, and soon there will be Swallows and Sand Martins, Swifts and House Martins, swooping over the water and feeding on flies.

No matter how many times you've seen it before it's a strange transformation to witness. 

The ears are as surprised as the eyes, as a whole new soundtrack unfolds to our wanderings. One of the new arrivals is the Sedge Warbler. This small, streaky brown bird has just flown in from Africa and starts singing the moment it arrives. Everything seems to be urgent and hurried in the world of this tiny scrap of life.

Reedbeds like these are its summer home - a few weeks ago it might have been perched among the elephant grasses of the Savanna. Its "song" is a madcap assemblage of chattering, clicks, whistles and snatches of other birds' songs, all hastily uttered with such rapid changes that I often think there are two or more birds singing. The longer it sings the more crazy it gets...

That's a short video I found on YouTube. The higher up the reed the bird climbs the more excited it becomes; often they fly up into the air, unable to control their emotions any longer.

Baker's Fen:

When we were at Fen Drayton Lakes the first Sedge Warblers had just arrived, by the time we visited Baker's Fen, near Wicken, they were chirruping away at full-throttle in every patch of reeds we passed.

Wicken Lode is (just about) navigable as far as this and a few boats make the journey and moor here for the night. They can't go any further, but what a great place to watch the sunset and then awake at dawn the next morning.

There's a Mid-West style wind pump here, looking a little out of place in the Fenlands of East Anglia. There's also a more traditional "windmill type" pump a short distance away, but just out of sight of today's walk.

The mere above held an interesting collection of "left-over birds": a single Wigeon that's presumably injured and unable to fly north with his brethren; a couple of Pochard perhaps similarly afflicted; some Mallards that seem to contain a certain amount of "farmyard-duck" in their genes; and a hybrid goose. 

But there were recent arrivals too: a Garden Warbler was singing sweetly in the bushes and several Blackcap likewise; a pair of Greenshank - an uncommon wader here, just passing through perhaps; and two or three Hobbies, smart little birds of prey which will feed on dragonflies later in the summer, catching them on the wing, then neatly "shelling them" and devouring them while in flight. And that symbol of the English spring, the Cuckoo.

I don't know who Charlie is (or was) but that's his hide above. "Charlie's Hide" it says proudly by the door. If the hide is anything to go by then Charlie would have been a rough and ready fenman, witness to many a "fen-blow" and perhaps a flood or two. The kind that blends in with the landscape and with a particularly pleasant outlook on life.

That's the outlook from Charlie's Hide anyway, as spring edges in across the Fens.

Take care.