Wicken Fen

[puddleshark]

Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata).

Of all the places I visited during my few days in Cambridgeshire, my absolute favourite was Wicken Fen.




Restored wind pump of 1908, originally used to drain peat diggings. (These days the National Trust uses a modern wind turbine to pump water into the fen, to maintain water levels).

This was the National Trust's first ever nature reserve, starting life with a modest 2 acres acquired in 1899. The reserve is now something over 2,000 acres, an oasis of old-fashioned biodiversity in a vast landscape of industrial agriculture.

"The reserve includes fenland, farmland, marsh, and reedbeds. Wicken Fen is one of only four wild fens that still survive in the enormous Great Fen Basin area... There 99.9% of the former fens have been replaced by arable cultivation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicken_Fen

While most of the fens was drained, by outside investors, the Adventurers, in the 17th century, employing Dutch engineers and prisoners of war as labour, Wicken Fen was saved by the villagers rioting to protect their way of life. (Other fen inhabitants across the regions were less successful...) Sedge was cut for use as a thatching material, peat dug for fuel. Fish and fowl provided a steady source of food...

In the late 19th century, with the local sedge and peat industries collapsing, naturalists paid villagers to assist with collecting trips on the Fen, and also bought up land from them. Distinguished entomologist Herbert Goss suggested the National Trust should consider saving Wicken Fen as early as 1898, as it was 'the haunt of much wildlife'. These naturalists then sold or gifted their land at Wicken to the newly-formed National Trust, including J C Moberley whose two acres were sold to the organisation for £10. Other notable donors included George Verrall, MP for Newmarket, who bequeathed 239 acres, on his death in 1911. Banker Charles Rothschild, an early influential figure in nature conservation donated parts of St Edmunds and Adventurers' Fens in 1901.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/cambridgeshire/wicken-fen-national-nature-reserve/history-of-wicken-fen

I followed the boardwalk a little way, before turning off onto the Summer Trail. It was still early, the sun just starting to warm, and if there were other visitors on the reserve, I never met them. It seemed to be just me, and the birds, and the dragonflies. And a Muntjac deer barking from somewhere in the reedbeds.


Yellow Waterlilies (Nuphar lutea) in the ditches. I didn't get a good picture, but the internal structure of the yellow flowers is spectacular. Nuphar is the Persian name for a water-lily, and lutea meaning "yellow".


The flowers are said to smell like stale alcohol.




Onto the Summer Trail, passable only in summer. Alongside the path, in among the tall grasses and the reeds, the marshland flowers: Marsh Thistles and Ragged Robins and Common Spotted Orchids.


Bumblebee Mimic Hoverfly (Volucella bombylans) on Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre). Pretty convincing at a glance, but look closer and the little hairy antennae are a giveaway.




Oedemera nobilis on Common Spotted Orchid.



The sun began to be warm, and the dragonflies and damselflies started to appear. Common Darter dragonflies - living up to their name - rising up in clouds from the path as I passed. Four Spotted Chasers fiercely defending their territory from other dragonflies.


Another Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata), but this one the beautiful praenubila form with the black smudges on the end of the wing.


Maybe an immature Common Blue Damselfly?



All along the way, the birds were singing. Familiar song: the metronomic chiff-chiff-chaff of Chiffchaffs, the melancholy falling-downstairs song of Willow Warblers, the abrupt jangling song of Reed Buntings, the distant call of Cuckoos. Unfamiliar, but easily identifiable: the cricket-like buzz of Grasshopper Warblers. Unknown: everything else. Wicken Fen is an alien world.


Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus)


There is a Reed Bunting somewhere in this picture.

Two Lapwings flew by, and one circled round me, passing close overhead. The birds of my childhood, lapwings. I haven't seen them locally for many years, but every winter I can still hear the ghost of their pee-wit calls from the water meadows. (When I got back to the visitor centre, the warden said the lapwings were not usually seen in that part of the reserve. Perhaps my longing for Lapwings drew them over.)


In the distance, the Konik ponies which graze the reserve.


Back along the boardwalk to the visitors' centre, then time for tea and cakie from the Docky Hut Café, sitting outside in the shade.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Lovely!!

I recall liking the Fens a great deal when I biked from Cambridge to Bath sometime in the early 70s. Though the Fens town I loved best was Ely ('cause big Tom's Midnight Garden fan here.)

[puddleshark]

Ely is wonderful - that was my next stop after Wicken Fen. 😊

My mental picture of the Fens comes from The Nine Tailors, but of course it is a very different landscape these days.

[dna2]

Beatiful trail, beatiful walk!

[puddleshark]

It is such a fabulous reserve. I'd love to go back one day and do some of the longer walks.

[heleninwales]

The trail looks very well kept. A great way to see the fenland flora and fauna.

[puddleshark]

I can see why that trail is only open during the summer, though. It was still a bit soft in places.

The National Trust also have a little electric boat that goes out along the waterways. I would have loved to take that, but it wasn't running.

[greenwoodside]

Beautiful! Reminds me of a book I enjoyed The Fens by Francis Pryor.

I hope one day more of the old fen country will resemble Wicken Fen. (Though I guess with sea levels rising, we're more likely to be getting extended salt marsh.)

[puddleshark]

It is a wonderful reserve. But it's only when you look at it on the map that you realise what a tiny, tiny - almost hopeless - island of nature it is in a vast landscape of industrial agriculture.

Yes, I read somewhere that parts of the Fens are now 3 metres below sea level. Salt marsh and lagoons seems a more likely fate for the future.

[greenwoodside]

Yes, in the Pryor book, there were two photos of a metal pole that had been driven into the ground some decades ago -- in the 'then' photo so much less was visible than in the contemporary shot. There had been so much erosion. Wish I had my copy with me so I could reproduce the page here -- it was very striking.

A cycle trip once between Lincoln and Boston at the north end of the fens really brought home how empty the land there is outside of big ag, apart from a few pockets of lime trees etc.

[puddleshark]

Yes, I read about that iron pole. Four 4 metres of shrinkage since 1852... It's an incredible amount.

I wish my visit could have been a bit longer, and that there had been time to hire a bike and explore some of the long distance cycle trails. You get a much better impression of landscape when travelling by bike.