What do you do when you're falling?

Having seen this recent post by Seth about the whole 5MR concept I thought it would be interesting to see what mine looked like. i.e what does a five mile radius (5MR) around my house encompass and could it provide some light natural history relief during lockdown?

Using the free map tools website, I decided to take a look.

So there I am just north of Cambridge, on the edge of the Fens and south of the Isle of Ely.

Zooming in you can see that the bottom of my 5MR circle is crossed by the mighty A14 that runs from Birmingham to Felixstowe, with the northernmost bit of the City of Cambridge to the south of it. The A10 also runs through it too, bisecting the eastern part, as it heads northwards towards to the Norfolk town of Kings Lynn.

But what about the habitat? 

The above satellite map shows a mass of agricultural fields interspersed by smaller pockets of housing. Pretty much most of the immediate land surrounding me is arable with the odd smattering of livestock. Not surprising really given the fertile nature of the soil around here. But what about the decent sites I (semi) regularly visit in search of beetles and other stuff?

So I decided to plot of them on the map to illustrate. 

1. Wicken Fen -  Very famous. The first nature reserve owned by the National Trust and according to the NT website it's one of Europe's most important wetlands, and home to over 9000 species. BUT at 7 miles from my house, not within my 5MR...

2. Wimpole Park Estate - another NT property and one with some great veteran trees and dead wood, plus lots of dung from cattle and sheep. BUT not within my 5MR...

When I look at beetle records on NBN I tend to find that for many species the only Cambridgeshire sites with records are the above 2 sites. So looking on the positive side I probably wouldn't be adding much by visiting those two sites, although I did add a new Wicken species a couple of years ago when I caught Badister collaris whilst moth trapping. 

3. Quy Fen - about 70 acres of common land that I only 'discovered' last year. It has some nice old oaks in open pasture and some dead wood. Also some nice bits of water. BUT just outside my 5MR...

4. Ditton Meadows - this has the closest bit of decent winter tussocking I've so far found. Common land next to the River Cam that regularly floods. I recorded 40+ species in 30 mins there just before Xmas. But guess what? Yep, not within my 5MR...

The final two sites I sometimes visit for a walk and incidental beetling

5. Fen Drayton RSPB Reserve - not within my 5MR...

6. Ouse Fen RSPB Reserve - not within my 5MR...

So it looks like I may have to be a little more inventive at finding some new sites to record in. 

There's my garden, obviously and there's a Local Nature Reserve in the next village where I've found a couple of nice things in the past. But I'm really going to have to scour the OS maps for hidden sites and gems. There is the River Ouse to the north, but having walked that whole stretch recently I don't hold out huge amounts of hope there. There's also a stretch of the River Cam to the east, most of which I know fairly well, but will have to see if I can make more of it.

Apart from that who knows, more to come on this I suspect....

Post title comes from Mike Oldfield