It all adders up!

Spring finally seems to have arrived on these shores with a bit of warmth finally percolating through the rain and gloom. With it also being Judith's birthday last week we decided to take a day off and go to Suffolk. No real targets or rarities just fancied a nice potter out in the sunshine and a spot of lunch by the coast. We left not ridiculously early and pulled into the car park at Minsmere just before they opened the centre at 9.
This is rapidly turning into one of our favourite reserves. Hardly surprising as it is one of the RSPB's premier sites although there were very few cars there when we arrived. A short stop in the centre and we were out into the reserve.
Minsmere for those who don't know it is a large area of reedbed on the coast, with a series of scrapes or shallow lagoons in the middle. This is a very good area for nesting birds especially black-headed gulls. It is all overlooked by Sizewell B power station in the distance!!!

Before we got to the scrapes though we walked past the sandy bank behind the visitor centre. This is normally a very good area for sand martins nesting but last year for whatever reason they moved to nest on the cliffs nearby preferring a seaview I suppose! It is still a bit early for them to have decided this year where to go but there was a flock of around 30 birds flying around but it wasn't clear whether they were just feeding as they rapidly headed away and over the marsh. They certainly weren't hanging around and neither were we.
The scrape was covered in gulls. There must have been hundreds of gulls, mainly black-headed, starting to nest and pair up. The noise was incredible. They were joined by 20 or so mediterranean gulls and a few sandwich terns as well.

As the weather was fine and warm though we wanted to head up to the heath. As well as birds Minsmere is a hot spot for adders. They are in decline now in the UK especially outside of the heathlands where they are mostly found. Minsmere has an area where you can catch up with them basking out in the open and this is where we headed for.
As we got close you could see a small crowd, well 4 or 5 people, standing behind a rope and staring avidly a the ground. When we got there the very helpful lady from the RSPB directed us to a pile of leaves where a small male adder was basking.

As you can see, not easy to pick out. It was controlling its temperature by moving in and out of the sun and shade under the leaves.

The RSPB lady was good at explaining things about it. Firstly, if you look at its eye it looks a bit "milky". That is because it is going through one of the periodic episodes where it sheds it ski in order to grow. The milky part is where the membrane covering the eye has detached prior to shedding. Also, they do tend to keep their heads under leaves when in direct sun, not to stop getting hot but as sunglasses to stop themselves getting blinded.

Eventually it came out into the open a bit more and you could see all of it. It was quite small, only perhaps 18 inches long and as thick as your thumb but the patterns are stunning. Totally different to the commoner and larger grass snake.
We eventually left it in peace and explored the rest of the reserve where we did manage to catch  decent view of the stone curlews nesting just outside the reserve but no good photos. We finished the day off with an excellent fish and chip lunch on the pier at Southwold.
Nice to be out with the sun on your back for a change and it should be set fair for a few days now so being on those Spring migrants!!