The watcher

As Storm Bronagh roared through the land, I was walking round Woodwalton Fen NNR, an exhilarating and sometimes slightly scary experience. The constant susurration of the reeds was overlain with the more intermittent roar of the wind through poplars, willows and oaks. Several poplar boughs had already fallen, and I felt it was prudent to either keep my distance or walk past at high speed.

I sat for a while in a hide overlooking the main reed-bed, which creaked and groaned in the wind in a worrying way. But it kept me dry while one of the showers passed through, and I had to trust that it was suitably sturdily built.

I spent quite a long time on the bank of the fen, facing full into the force of the wind, watching the rapid changes as showers passed by and the sun re-appeared.  A red kite and a kestrel were hanging effortlessly in its current, watching for prey moving in the large grassy expanse of the fen restoration area, now stocked with hardy black cattle and sheep, as well as a white pony, who seemed to be relishing the wind as much as me, his mane and tail flying in the breeze. 

Part of the area was orange and gold with seeding docks - I practiced some in-camera movement shots, (see extra)  which came out looking like watercolours. The technique makes the landscape look very coastal, with the slight rise to the higher land of the fen edge visible in the distance. Of course, a very long time ago this higher land would have been at the edge of the sea - and one day it surely will be again.