Around the Scrape with the lovely David for company!

I was quite pleased with myself on Friday.  I arrived at Minsmere lovely and early - so early, in fact, that  was able to catch up with one of our lovely reserve guides before he went out.  Happily he didn't remotely object to the concept of having company as he toured the Scrape so off we went.

David is actually one of my favourite guides - no mean feat, as we have some wonderful individuals filling this crucial role at Minsmere.  He's not only a lovely person, he's incredibly knowledgeable - he also collects samples of otter spraint (poo!) for analysis.  A multi-talented man!

Our first stop was at the North Hide.  We'd barely sat down before he quickly spotted a beautiful curlew to the side of the hide - nice one, David:

The usual geese were about - well, they were before the greylags decided to scarper:

A male Canada goose subtly chasing a suitable female:

This little egret resolutely kept its back to me:

After leaving the North Hide we headed up the North Wall to the beach, collecting otter spraint on the way from one of their communal open-air toilets!  David has his scope set up and was spotting things like the red throated diver and the great crested grebe out on the North Sea - these were way beyond the limits of my camera so I stuck to what was within range:

It's fair to say that both Limpy and I would love one of these!  It made short work of travelling across the shingle.

These 'sharks' teeth' are only visible at low tide - they are leftovers from WW2.

We stayed on the beach for a while and then headed for the East Hide.

Teals are lovely little ducks - the females are beautifully marked.

The males are no slouches either.

There were hundreds of lapwings on the Scrape.  I loved hearing their weird chatter!

It was only after I looked at this picture on my computer that I realised I'd snapped a turnstone along with the shelduck.

What is Mrs Gadwall doing to Mr Gadwall's backside?

Mr Mallard keeps his beady eye on me.....

....as well as the Mrs!

One of the ringed plovers decides it's too cold to bathe.

A male wigeon draws some attention away from the numerous lapwings.

After a while we headed out of the East Hide.  David made sure he showed me where to look for traces of otters around the gate to the hide - I even managed to spot some spraint!  We headed to the next hide, which was the open air Public Platform - it was too damp to sit down but we did see even more lapwings on the South Scrape.  We then walked down to the Lucky Pool, which boasted a variety of gulls - at the back, though, on its favourite grassy knoll, was one of our local peregrines!  We could just about see it lurking in the grass through David's scope but it was too far away to photograph.  Rats.

Our next stop was the South Hide, where we looked across the multitude of lapwings to the Public Platform - there were a few other birds about as well.

A lone oystercatcher was having some 'me' time near the Public Platform.

This snipe wakes up to realise it's too late to hide!  Gotcha, Snipey.

A companionable shovel from Mr and Mrs Shoveler.

After a while we headed back towards the Visitor Centre as lunch was calling.  As we passed the Wildlife Lookout and headed into the woodland we had a few more sightings:

One of a flock of long-tailed tits who would just not stop moving.

My first tree creeper in ages!

I'm inevitably finishing with a beautiful magpie.

I must thank David for a lovely and informative walk round - we must do this again, and soon!