RANGER, WICKEN FEN AJAY TEGALA
fen folk: skating across winter washes, harvesting wild plants, living in rhythm with the land. Today, the Fens are a place of restoration and resilience. Thanks to rewilding, reed bed creation and peatland recovery, nature is finding its way back. In a time of climate and ecological crisis, to me that feels deeply hopeful. As a ranger, author and wildlife presenter, much of my work is rooted in this landscape. It’s the stillness, the subtlety, the space to breathe – and the sense that something wild and wonderful is always just around the corner – that keeps drawing me back.
to roost. When starlings whirl around above in murmuring flocks, sketching fleeting masterpieces against the dusk. But spring is the best. The land greens. Warblers chatter from the reeds. Swifts scream overhead, cuckoos call, bitterns boom and cranes lift from the reed beds with outstretched wings, their prehistoric bugling echoing across the sky. By summer, damselflies dance and orchids bloom, water voles plop into lodes lined with floating lilies. Life is everywhere if you look closely enough. I’ve always felt drawn to the stories of this place – not just the wildlife, but the people. I often imagine the Victorian
Raised in the South Lincolnshire Fens, my earliest memories were shaped by water – the glint of the River Welland, the rustle of reeds and the flicker of wings overhead. Wetland wildlife captured my imagination from the start. I learned the names of all the birds on riverside rambles and Sunday strolls through the flat, open landscape. The Fens are too often dismissed as bleak or boring. To me, they’re anything but. On Wicken Fen, winter mornings can be magical. When frost clings to the reeds, wildfowl stir in the mist and the sky glows orange as harriers glide
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK JULY 2025 13
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