At this time of the year, the vegetation has died back and so the view across the Great Fen is an incredibly open one. In addition to taking in the ‘big skies’, it’s a productive time to gaze across the grasslands in search of mammals.

Creatures great and small are active throughout the year, including winter, and this time of year can provide the best sightings of them. Chinese water deer is a favourite for many people and you can see them more easily now, as there is less cover for them. You have a greater chance of seeing them in the early evening, unless you chance across them as they break cover from a nearby ditch as you walk the trails and they shoot off, sprinting across the fields.

Roe deer can been seen in the open fields, in small groups, and red foxes can also be seen, passing through or on the hunt for the small mammals, such as bank voles and field voles. For those of you with good, high frequency hearing, the calls of shrews can sometimes be heard from the ditch banks, and water’s edge in the case of the water shrew.

Predators are out and about, such as the raptors, hunting small mammals and birds. Watch out for hovering kestrels, quartering short-eared owls and the low-flying marsh harriers; wings held aloft in their distinctive ‘V-shaped’ position, as they search the reedbeds and ditches.

The common reed is the latest flowing grass species and so its spectacular seed-heads are fully developed at this time of year, the feathery ripe seeds adding to this iconic plant, providing photographers with stunning view in the Fens.

Henry Stanier (Great Fen Monitoring & Research Officer)