Wicken Fen…

On June 26 Lisa’s pre-school, Ladybird Pre-School, had a day out at Wicken Fen.  This is a National Trust owned Nature Reserve near Cambridge.

The weather couldn’t have been better for the day.. it was a little overcast, but that kept the heat down which was good.

(click to see full sized images)

You can see the rest of the pics taken yesterday by CLICKING HERE

Click to read on ….

It was a great day out, the kids had such a great time.  We were in the “Diving Beetles” group.  The first thing we did was pond dipping.  This involved using nets on the end of sticks.  The kids (with help from the adults) swept the nets through the water then tipped the nets into pans filled with water.  In Lisa’s first dip she got a large snail and a couple small bugs.  We also managed to get a pretty good sized newt.  The Wicken Fen staff managed to fish out a massive newt that was about 3 or 4 times the size of the one we had.

The second “adventure” was the mini-beast hunt.  This had the kids looking under logs for whatever sorts of things they could find.  There were worms and a few other bugs to find as well.   The second part of this was to use large nets on sticks, sweeping them through the long grass to see what they could catch.  There wasn’t much here as there was already another group that did this before us so everything was already scared off 🙂

The final event of the day was a short walk along the spectacular boardwalk they have that winds through the Fen.  The boardwalk itself is interesting, it’s constructed entirely from a plastic material that has been completely made from recycled materials.  The walk on the boardwalk was a guided tour by one of the Wicken Fen staff.  The kids were given pencils and a sheet of paper with several animals, birds and other critters that are found in the Fen, they had to find these.  This was made easy in that they only had to look for the wooden cut outs of the creatures that were left on the boardwalk for them.  The guide would then tell us about these and give other info about the Fen. 

It’s a great place and I think we will go back again one day to explore the boardwalk and other paths that wander through the Fen.