{"id":5683,"date":"2016-05-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/?p=5683"},"modified":"2016-05-18T18:15:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T17:15:39","slug":"wicken-fen-2rd-may-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/2016\/05\/wicken-fen-2rd-may-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Wicken Fen 2nd May 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wicken Fen 2nd May 2016<\/h3>\n

Having recently finished rereading a book based on a long – term study of Cuckoos at Wicken Fen, Cuckoos : Cheating By Nature<\/a> by Nick Davies, I was interested to see this – the oldest –\u00a0 National Trust site. Unfortunately it was a bank holiday and the reserve was heaving with people and their children and dogs. On the plus side, as soon as we got to the cafe I heard my first Cuckoo of the year. We continued to hear Cuckoos as we went round the reserve but didn’t manage to see any.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We noticed that there was a boat trip in 40 minutes time so we booked our place and went on a short walk until the departure time. We took the boardwalk, circular route and we soon had good views of a couple of Sedge Warblers singing from the top of the reeds (or sedge !). We also had a good aural “sighting” of a Grasshopper Warbler and as we walked around there were Cetti ‘s Warblers and Chiffchaff. We got a single Marsh Harrier<\/p>\n

The boat trip turned out to be pretty crap; there was us two and then three adults and five children. The children were pretty bored and their parents let them yell their way through the trip. The “skipper” admitted he didn’t have a clue about birds (or nature in general) so, in the end, it felt like a total waste of time and money.
\nWhile we were on the boat we saw plenty of Swallow and heard a Willow Tit but that was about it. When we got off the boat we had a quick walk around the boardwalk again getting good views of a Marsh Harrier before giving up – it was just too full of children and dogs to be enjoyable.<\/p>\n

It was a really interesting reserve and I would certainly go back there again but not on a bank holiday.<\/p>\n

Year Ticks Cucko (heard) and Grasshopper Warbler (heard)<\/p>\n

Bird Sightings : 2nd May Wicken Fen<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Species<\/th>\nCount<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Canada Goose<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Pheasant<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eurasian Marsh Harrier<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Moorhen<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Wood Pigeon<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eurasian Collared Dove<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Cuckoo<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Kestrel<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Barn Swallow<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Willow Tit<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Great Tit<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eurasian Blue Tit<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Long-tailed Tit<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cetti’s Warbler<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Chiffchaff<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sedge Warbler<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eurasian Reed Warbler<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Grasshopper Warbler<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
European Robin<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eurasian Blackbird<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Starling<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reed Bunting<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Common Chaffinch<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
European Greenfinch<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
European Goldfinch<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
House Sparrow<\/td>\n30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

click here for the route the boat took<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wicken Fen 2nd May 2016 Having recently finished rereading a book based on a long – term study of Cuckoos at Wicken Fen, Cuckoos : Cheating By Nature by Nick Davies, I was interested to see this – the oldest –\u00a0 National Trust site. Unfortunately it was a bank holiday and the reserve was heaving … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birding-days-out","category-birding-on-holiday","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5683"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5891,"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5683\/revisions\/5891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billneil.co.uk\/blogs\/birding\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}