A Water Rail at Lakenheath Fen

31st December 2025

After a most successful morning at Lackford Lakes time to explore Lakenheath Fen. The Fen is likely to be very quiet at this time of year so the plan today was to hopefully photograph the Siskins that have been feeding in the Alders by the visitor centre and visit the photography hide. In the event the Siskins had obviously moved on so I went straight to the hide. The hide overlooks some feeders, but has the advantage that the backdrop is a reed bed with small trees so it is quite easy to photograph the birds away from the feeders.

Of course, despite being located in the middle of nowhere, the feeders still attract garden birds such as Blue Tits, Great Tits and Goldfinches, although I never thought I would see the day when I called Goldfinches a garden bird.

But being in a wetland habitat they also attract more unusual birds such as Marsh Tits and Reed Buntings.

Here is the female Reed Bunting..................

                            .....................and here is the male.

But the star of the show today was the appearance of a Water Rail, which I know from my experiences at Amwell are quite happy to feed on seed, in this case sunflower hearts dropped from the feeders.

Well, that was most enjoyable and I will be back in a few months for the Hobbys.