July 23, 2025

This month we were visiting a local reserve, RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes. Most of our members  have been here before but this time we had Brian, a new member, who had not experienced  this reserve. That kept me on my toes as I couldn’t assume that we all knew the layout and  the names of the individual lakes. 

We started by walking from the main car park down the broad path towards the river. At this  time of year most birds have raised a new family and some are raising a second brood or, if  they were unsuccessful the first time, they might be trying again. It’s a challenging time of  year for birdwatchers as the bushes and trees are in full leaf and some birds are resting  between reeding attempts and not showing themselves as much as they would have done in  April or May. Also, when birds have young they change from songs designed to attract  partners to simpler contact calls equivalent to saying I’m here. 

However, there were still a few birds such as Wren, Chiffchaff, Robin and Goldfinch letting us  know they were nearby. 

We turned off the path before reaching the river and walked along to the look out screen  which gives a view over Ferry Lagoon and in particular the shallow scrape. This is an area of  the lake where there are a number of islands and water channels in between which leave  plenty of muddy shallow areas for the birds to probe in their search for food. Birds that  specialise in this type of habitat are called waders. Some have webbed feet enabling them to  walk across very soft mud and some have long legs enabling them to wade out further and  find food under the water. Many have specialised long beaks which they not only use for  picking up food items but they also use them for probing beneath the mud and stirring it up  in the hope of disturbing small creatures that are hiding there. 

Our first sighting was a Grey Heron, which is a large wader that stands very still at the of the  water watching for a fish or other prey item to swim past. It has a large dagger shaped beak  and it strikes very quickly when it gets the chance. They even take frogs and other birds. I  have seen a Heron take a duckling and swallow it whole! 

The heron family also includes Egrets which are predominantly white. We have three types  of egrets commonly seen in the UK. The largest is the Great White Egret which is about the  same size as the Grey Heron, the Little Egret is medium sized and is the commonest of the  

three, while the Cattle Egret is the smallest and as its name suggests it likes being around  cattle that rough the ground up exposing worms and such like. Egrets are relatively recent  colonisers of the UK. Little Egrets arrived around 1970, then Greta Whites arrived and most  recently Cattle Egrets. All are doing very well and all are breeding here probably due to the  warmer climate of late. 

We saw Great White Egrets on Ferry Mere then later on Moore Lake. We also saw Little  Egrets on both lakes. We didn’t see Cattle Egrets on this visit.

Other birds spotted on Ferry Mere included Greylag and Egyptian Geese, Large numbers of  Mute Swans, Coot, Lapwing, Black-headed and Herring Gulls, Common Tern, Cormorant. 

We walked on down to the river opposite the Ferry Boat Inn. We hoped for a Kingfisher but  none were showing. We did see several Moorhen and a lot more Mute Swans. None had  cygnets so they were probably non-breeding birds that often join up together in large flocks  at this time of year to avoid clashing with new parent birds that can be quite aggressive. 

Over the meadow opposite we saw a Common Buzzard circling and calling with its  characteristic mewing. This is often done to contact other family members nearby. We walked on up the side of Drayton Lagoon where we found Great Crested Grebe and  Gadwall and we heard Reed Warbler singing in the ditch vegetation. 

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