A nature reserve tucked away on the Broads and home to some of Norfolk’s most threatened wildlife is celebrating 50 years.<\/p>\n
Strumpshaw Fen covers 450 hectares (1,112 acres) of diverse wetland \u2014 the equivalent of 630 football pitches.<\/p>\n
Reserves manager Helen Deavin said the site supported “rare and unusual species”, including nesting bitterns, the swallowtail butterfly and a pair of cranes that successfully raised a chick this summer.<\/p>\n
“One of the lovely things about Strumpshaw is that the wildlife is quite accessible,” added Deavin, who called the reserve a “hidden gem”.<\/p>\n
Marsh harriers, bearded tits, flocks of waders and overwintering ducks and geese are a regular sight for visitors, along with otters, water voles, fen raft spiders, orchids and rare sharp-leaved pondweed.<\/p>\n
“There’s this incredible, really quite rare wildlife but actually it’s really possible for people to see it, get some great views and really experience the magic of the Broads,” added Deavin.<\/p>\n
“By developing habitats where wildlife feels safe and can find the right food and places to shelter and raise a family, teams across the years have created a reserve that helps populations of rare species not only survive, but thrive.”<\/p>\n
She said the summer’s heatwaves had been “tough”, but they were hoping for a cooler, wetter autumn, with the reserve braced for flood events and “saline surges” with seasonal tides.<\/p>\n
Strumpshaw is hosting various events to celebrate the milestone, including guided walks around the site on Sunday. <\/p>\n
The reserve started off as unmanaged fenland and was taken over by the RSPB in the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nature reserve tucked away on the Broads and home to some of Norfolk’s most threatened wildlife is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-761670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}