On Wednesday I visited Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire, a nature reserve owned by the National Trust and one of the few remaining fen areas in East Anglia.

It’s not the easiest of places to get to if you’re car-less. The nearest stations are Ely and Waterbeach, and it’s a reasonable hike or bike ride from there. You can also get a bus, but the nearest stop is Soham Village, three miles away. I went for the bike option, hiring one in Ely and cycling the National Cycle Route 11 all the way there. It’s a wonderful route: clearly signed all the way (it’s a shame that that should be worth commenting on, but there you go) and mostly car-free.

The Fen itself is quite remarkable: as you would imagine, very flat; seemingly endless in places. I also found it quite eerie — the only sounds you could here were the wind in the reeds and the occasional bird call or human voice floating by.

It’s supposed to be rich in birdlife, but to be honest I spotted more en-route (including what might have been a marsh harrier).

Clear off!, originally uploaded by reynard.

Just back from a week’s camping in St. Davids, Pembrokeshire. The weather was “changeable”, the scenery beautiful and the wildlife wonderful. Hopefully the chronic back pain will lift in a day or two’s time.

As well as doing a few walks along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path I got the chance to visits the islands of Ramsey and Skomer, both wildlife reserves run by the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts respectively. The weather on Ramsay was spectacular, on Skomer it was utterly dire. It didn’t stop me getting a few shots of the resident puffins however. They’re very used to people poking about and just about tolerate it so you can get pretty close.

I’m not great at my bird identification, but cross referencing what I saw with my Complete British Birds and what the wardens told us we could expect to see, I think I got to see:

• Meadow pipits
• Stonechats
• Choughs
• Gannets
• Manx Shearwater
• Guillemots
• Razorbills
• Puffins
• A short-eared owl
• Black-backed gulls
• Oyster catchers
• Skylarks
• Swallows
• House martins
• Loads of rooks and jackdaws

I also got to see some porpoises, common dolphins and seals too which was pretty cool.

Feed me! There’s a rather loud great tit family who pass by every so often. The two young ones demand to be fed by excitedly flapping their wings and twittering away.

Tickets secured! I’ve got tickets to go and see the Nunkie Theatre Company’s production of M.R. James’ “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad” at Great Livermere Church, Suffolk. James grew up in Livermere and his father was vicar at the church, so you don’t get much more of a homecoming gig than this.

Front room #1. We got the decorators in to finish the house off as we were advancing at a snail’s pace ourselves. They’ve made a really good job of it. This is the front room — now we’ve got to move all the furniture and books back in.

 

What I write about on my blog apparently, originally uploaded by reynard.

I generated this from Wordle.net — a tag cloud of what I write about on my blog apparently. As you can see, my vocabulary is impressive and varied, with words such as “things” and “good” appearing prominently.

Look out though, because “possibly, Norman’s took mobile”.

My weekly photo project has taken a bit of a bash recently due to various study and other commitments. To be honest I lost count of where I’d got, so here are two I took today. The first is of Bankside by the Tate Modern, using the zoom technique thing and the second was taken inside the Tate. Despite it looking like a photo I took entirely by accident, I did actually mean to take it. Not sure if I really like it, but I do like the way the word “Alchemy” seems to jump out.

17/52: 18/04/09 [Phone box, Betchworth], originally uploaded by reynard.

I went for a lovely walk from Dorking to Reigate yesterday. It was a nice break from revision, or more specifically worrying about how little revision I’ve done for my impending exam.

This was taken during the lunch break — the “suggested lunchtime stop”, the Dolphin Inn, can be seen in the background, to the left of the phone box.

The phone box is the main focus of this photo. Partly because it seemed a little incongruous in such a pretty village and partly because I realised that old-style red phone boxes are becoming rarer to find. The ones in London are quite often in a parlous state and sometimes are treated as bins and / or toilets.

16/52: 10/04/09 [Tulips], originally uploaded by reynard.

Tulips in Greenwich Park: 1/400, f/1.8, Canon EF II 50mm lens.

14/52: 4/04/09 [Daffodils], originally uploaded by reynard.

Two this week because I couldn’t decide which one I preferred. I mean, neither are particularly good, but they demonstrate the nice depth of field I can get with my new Canon EF II 50mm lens.

15/52: 4/04/09 [The DOF of everyday things], originally uploaded by reynard.

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a new lens for a while — possibly a wide angle zoom, but they are a bit pricey. This lens seemed a good compromise — it was pretty cheap (about £80 from Amazon) and you can open it up to f/1.8 so there’s the potential there for some interesting shots — the operative word being potential I think.

The daffodils I took in Gordon Square the first time I tried out the lens; the second shot is a homage to the cover of Norman’s Design of Everyday Things book.

13/52: 26/03/09 [Farewell old friend], originally uploaded by reynard.

Last week my copy of the first volume of Time Out Country Walks finally bought it. To be honest, it’s never been the same since that time I dropped it in a bog on its first or second outing. It was much loved and much used — hopefully I’ll still be able to take some photocopies from it though.