Red poppy

Yellow #1

Highland cattle in Wicken Fen NNR

A Highland cattle and a calf were shown in this postcard of Wicken Fen NNR in Cambridgeshire. The back of the postcard explained why they are found hundreds of miles away from their home in the Scottish Highlands - to keep the ground of Burwell Fen, part of Wicken Fen, free of scrub.

According to the National Trust's Wicken Fen website:

Grazing animals are essential in developing vegetation in new areas of the nature reserve. The animals help to keep the landscape open and help wetland and grassland plants to become established.

Walking Wicken Fen

Wicken Fen, one of Europe's most important wetlands, supports an abundance of wildlife. There are more than 9000 species, including a spectacular array of plants, birds and dragonflies.

The raised boardwalk and lush grass droves allow easy access to a lost landscape of flowering meadows, sedge and reedbeds, where you can encounter rarities such as hen harriers, water voles and bitterns.

Wicken Fen Vision, an ambitious landscape-scale conservation project, is opening up new areas of land to explore. Our grazing herds of Highland cattle and Konik ponies are helping to create a diverse range of new habitats. (Source: National Trust)

Travel information

Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve (NNR) is in Ely, Cambridgeshire and located southeast of Peterborough. Although about a little over than an hour's drive from Peterborough I have to go to March town to meet my work colleagues. March is about 30 minutes drive from Peterborough and was another 45 minutess drive to Wicken Fen. I went down to the NNR last September 2022 for a site visit together with work colleagues.

Wind-pump in Wicken Fen

This postcard shows a photo of the last working wind-pump in the Cambridgeshire fens and is found in Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve (NNR), which I visited last September of 2022. Wicken Fen is located in Ely and is about an hour's drive from Peterborough.

Wicken Fen is the oldest nature reserve managed by the National Trust and also considered the most famous fen in England. A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water; it is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs (Source: Wikipedia). The working wooden wind-pump is a top feature of Wicken Fen and is popular with the visitors.