Wicken Fen

Today we spent over 2 hours wandering around Wicken Fen.  And what is exactly is a fen?  Well I wasn't sure until a) we got there and b) I googled.

Here's a tiny intro into to the world of fens.......

Fens are like bogs, swamps and marshes in that they are areas of waterlogged land supporting a wide variety of plants and animals adapted to live in damp conditions. Bogs, swamps and marshes are fed by rainwater or water draining from the land (known as "run-off"), which makes them acidic. Fens on the other hand, though often formed like bogs on waterlogged peat, are usually fed by water from below ground, which tends to be alkaline (chalky). For this reason fens have a unique variety of plants and animals, all depending in some way on alkaline ground conditions.

And so we entered the fen and took the nature trail walk, and that's when the hunting and stalking began.  There was lots of hushing, sneaking, creeping and crawling to get pictures like these....

Note dragonfly (or was it a damsel fly) on bottom left, very flighty and very difficult to photograph.
Lots of sneaking for that shot!

But the fen wasn't all about insects, here's more of what we saw.

The boys are laughing at Steve pretending to be David Attenborough!

Once again our last minute decision to just have a quick squizzie at the "fen thingy" was a winner and our visit to Wicken was a resounding success.