Most of the East Anglian countryside was once dominated by wetlands from the fens in the West to the Broads in the East, today the are still some real gems of this wetland habitat surviving, important for lots of Wildlife, with rare species that were on the brink of extinction this country like the Bittern to the one of the two largest of our spiders in the United Kingdom, the raft spider with a leg span of 70mm, they prefer to live around acidic bogland or wet acidic grassland.

The Bittern can be hard to see as it walks through the reeds, but I was lucky  to see one land at the edge of reeds at RSPB Lakenheath in June, I had my camera to hand and just managed to get a photo before it disappeared into the reedbed, people are often surprised at how large the bittern is and it looks like a large moth as it flies over the reedbeds, more it is heard ‘booming’ like  a sound like someone blowing down a drain pipe.

On that same day in June I saw another bird of the water, a Kingfisher, brightly coloured but somehow missed by lots of people as it sits perched on a reed or branch waiting to catch a passing fish,  as it flies low over the water and the light catches the electric blue plumage is the only time you may know it is there.

This is a habitat of the East Anglian Landscape that is worth protecting for all kinds of wildlife and ourselves.