Konik's ponies

We had planned to go to Wicken Fen, to finish some Pete's fieldwork, but after Pete's attack I thought we would have to cancel. But somehow, and I really don't know how, he managed to rally himself and find the strength to go. Luckily Chris came with us to do all the hard work.

Before we left I took the dogs for a walk along the river at Castor, where I was delighted to see a plenitude of banded demoiselles along the backwater. This normally common damselfly has been very sparse this year, probably because many of the larvae living in the main river were washed away by the spring floods. The backwater is much more sheltered and clearly this population was unaffected. At one point about ten males flew all around my head - like something in a Disney film! I got some good photographs and thought one of these would be my blip for the day.

We set off for Wicken just after 10, and by the time we arrived it was hot and windy - quite strange and uncomfortable weather. Pete felt somewhat nauseous for the last few miles, but I'd taken some anti-sickness pills for him which managed to ward this off, and he coped amazingly well with the exertions of the day.

One of the areas to be sampled is grazed by a large herd of Konik's ponies, which usually prefer the outer fringes of the site and are often not visible at all. Today I was lucky enough to be right next to the herd as they galloped past, and watched them for some time splashing and grazing in the shallowly flooded field where Pete and Chris were working. Pete and Chris decided to make a tactical retreat, as although the ponies are not vicious, they can be rather boisterous, as demonstrated by these two stallions, who were testing each others strength in a battle for supremacy.

Konik's are an unusual breed of small horse, or pony, originally from Poland.They have proved to be ideally adapted to year-round grazing on grassland and wetland habitats and have been used by several conservation organisations to help manage nature reserves both in Britain and Europe. The Wicken Konik's came from Hickling Broad in Norfolk and from Holland. In both places, these ponies had been grazing wetland sites.

These stallions are part of the breeding herd which graze the Adventurers' Fen part of the Wicken Fen nature reserve. On Adventurers' Fen, the Konik's can range freely across about 120 hectares (300 acres) of wetland and grassland habitat. Konik's ponies are very hardy for year-round grazing, suited to the ground and vegetation conditions, with appropriate experience of open landscapes with water in pools and ditches. They are an 'echo' of the type of wild horses that may have been living in the fenlands before the early humans eradicated wild horses from Britain. They are typically a soft brownish colour and many (such as the paler stallion) have a distinct dorsal stripe, which is reminiscent of the now-extinct European wild horse, the tarpan.