A magical fifteen minutes at Wicken

I've never really rated Wicken Fen for a bit of quick and dirty birding; I know there's plenty of you have the time to look for it but there never seems to be very much just there. I went tonight to pick my daughter up from a brownie thing and got there a little bit early. I was glad I did. What a quarter of an hour. Great spotter woodpecker, green woodpecker, swallows at close quarters, really good reed warbler, wren, various finches and tits, grasshopper warbler singing and just as I was about to wander off, a barn owl on a fence post, having a little early evening preen. Marvellous.