Bluebell Fen

Last week, we performed Phase 1 surveys on a variety of County Wildlife Sites (and potential ones) around the UEA campus. These sites are part of a network of locally designated areas for threatened wildlife, which, while having no legal standing, do offer some protection from development in the planning system, with the Norfolk Wildlife Trust playing a key role in their surveying and management. 

Phase 1 surveys, developed by the JNCC, are a standardised method of classifying habitat types according predominantly to vegetation and other environmental conditions and human activity. The surveys typically also involve using GIS to research the landscape and its historical usage, as well as recording and identifying noteworthy species as target notes.

Bluebell Fen

There are 5 CWS at UEA, including Bluebell Fen, where the River Yare runs through an area of open land, with fields on the east border and woodland on the west. It forms crucial part of corridor of greenspace of both natural and amenity areas running through UEA campus to the wider countryside. Its lose to the UEA Broad to the north and urban areas in Cringleford to the east and south. A network of footpaths as well as a boardwalk provide access and there is network of dykes throughout.

From 1900-50, there were boat houses on the southern edge of the fen, and the area was once designated as a floodplain, although no major changes in land use seem to have occurred historically.

Bluebell Fen is designated as a CWS for wet wood and fen with water vole, otter, water rail, reed, sedge, Cetti's and willow warbler, Norfolk Hawkers and Willow Emerald damselflies. The main vegetation is sedge and rush, although crowding with willow is beginning to occur and the fen is in need of wetting in the face of the drying impacts of a more erratic climate.

During our survey, we identified areas of improved grassland (the donkey fields), marshy grassland and flood-plain mire. We also made note of the grazing animals, important habitat features such as a fallen tree, and a buzzard observed flying over the fen.


A view of the River Yare and flood-plain mire beyond from the boardwalk through Bluebell Fen


A view of the marshy grassland from the boardwalk through Bluebell Fen


Future surveys should focus around priority species such as water vole, for which there is suitable habitat and previous sightings but which were not recorded during our phase 1 survey. Further surveying is also needed to identify a wider range of plant species and get a more accurate description of the plant communities.

The Bluebell Fens CWS fits well into the wider landscape as part of a habitat corridor through suburban Norwich and the UEA campus, and as important buffer habitat surrounding the River Yare. We believe the site is in moderate status but faces threats from drying out following more erratic weather patterns, and over competition by willow trees. Therefore the CWS needs continued conservation action such as blocking drains and sustainable grazing to control these processes.

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