An Autumnal trip to Minsmere

This Autumn has been incredibly mild. With more nice weather forecast we decided to have a quick trip across to Suffolk to go and visit one of our favourite reserves, Minsmere.  We left early and got there with the car park almost empty. A quick coffee and breakfast and we set out for the circular walk around the scrape. I first came here in the mid 70's on family holidays, in the days when avocets were rare birds! It's changed enormously since then and continues to evolve. With the almost complete dry-out of the central scrape over the summer, the RSPB were doing lots of work. This included a giant yellow digger reshaping the pools and a new walkway through the reeds to the east hide. It will be really good when finished but for us meant there were hardly any birds around on the scrape.

It is still a gorgeous place to walk round and we did manage to come across a few tasty morsels! A group of 4 bearded tits were feeding on gravel by the path near the sluice.

It was two gorgeous males, with their extravagant moustaches, and two females. 

This video gives you an idea of their busy behaviour (click on link).

Bearded tits feeding on gravel

We watched them for a few minutes till they flew off, "pinging" as they went.

Th other highlight was at Island Mere hide. This is the best place to see bitterns and was very popular with standing room only in there. A great white egret was posing nicely just outside. Only a few years ago and this would have attracted a crowd of eager twitchers. Nowadays they are increasingly common breeders and regularly spotted across the country. 

It did do a brief fly-around but seemed to like the area in front of the hide which it kept coming back to.

The stars though were three bitterns which were quite active. One initially popped its head up right outside the hide!

It soon flew a short distance though into thicker reeds where it disappeared!

It was then joined by two other birds which flew in to join it!

Of course, once they flew in they disappeared from view. We left them to it and pottered off to go and have fish and chips in Southwold and visit my favourite cheese shop near Snape Maltings. No rare or unusual birds but a really nice day in the warm Autumn sunshine.