The Fen Drayton Lakes volunteer team has built two otter holts, which we hope will encourage these much-loved mammals to become permanent residents in the lakes. As any natural holt in the banks of a lake is liable to flooding, the new holts have been built on floating rafts. The team is also building rafts for nesting common terns – these birds will nest on the bare islands, but those that choose to nest on the rafts will have a better chance of succeeding if summer flooding occurs.
If you would like to join the volunteer team, which meets on the second Tuesday and last Saturday of each month, please contact Allison Cushley, Warden, RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes, tel: 01954 233266, mobile 07921 495449, e-mail allison.cushley@rspb.org.uk.
For those keen to be involved in the development of the RSPB Ouse Fen reserve, volunteering opportunities including tasks at Berry Fen and Barleycroft, are already open with practical work parties carrying out habitat management tasks held monthly on the second Saturday and third Wednesday from 10 am - 4 pm. For further volunteering details or information about our work in the area please contact; Chris Hudson, Warden, RSPB Ouse Fen, tel: 01954 233265, mobile: 07766 441863 e-mail: chris.hudson@rspb.org.uk
April and May are exciting times for watching wildlife in the UK, as there is so much activity associated with breeding going on – insects visiting flowers, courting creatures, adults finding food for their babies. As the daylight hours are getting longer (and warmer), many of us can spend more time enjoying it.
How will this year compare with recent years – will there be more cuckoos? Will swifts and spotted flycatchers arrive earlier or later? When will we find the first hairy dragonfly or scarce chaser? How will the weather influence flowering dates and nesting success (or failure)? Will we have late frosts, or thunderstorms and floods?
For many people, the sight of the first swallows, or sound of cuckoos, brings a feeling of happiness, and a promise of summer. The songs of warblers have the same significance to us as returning geese have to those who live near the Arctic Circle. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of spending a May day with a conservationist from Ghana – he was bowled over by the garden warbler’s songs. He was very familiar with this bird in its wintering grounds, where it never sings.
Migration is an incredible journey for many creatures, travelling thousands of miles across inhospitable deserts and oceans, facing unknown risks, such as storms or droughts and food shortages. For other species, the journey is much shorter, and perhaps with fewer risks – amphibians and reptile may travel less than a mile between their winter hibernation site and their breeding or summer feeding areas. How many will have survived the winter?
Common tern