Happy Christmas everyone

A reminder that all facilities, including the hides and nature trails, will be CLOSED from 3.30 pm on Christmas Eve until 9 am on Tuesday 27 December, when everything will be open as usual.

It will be well worth a visit after Christmas, too, as there are lots of birds to look for. As well as hundreds of ducks and gulls on the Scrape, there are one or two Avocets, Dunlins, Turnstones and Redshanks…

Guest blog by Minsmere visitor experience volunteer, Eve

Goodbye to 2022!

As we begin a new year, our thoughts will sometimes turn toward the things we want to improve about ourselves. The idea of a fresh start can be very appealing but can often become a long list of impossible resolutions and the inevitable failure when real life and a lack of motivation in the winter months get in the way of the planned gym visits…

I may be stating the obvious, but it's certainly been cold this week. So cold that most of our wetlands have remained frozen, and the paths remain incredibly slippery in places, especially through the North Bushes and around Whin Hill. Whilst this freezing weather remains, please take care on the reserve and check our social media for the latest updates.

Despite the ice, there have been large flocks of ducks on the…

In last week's blog I raised the question about whether we set for a waxwing winter. The jury is still out on that, although a few more flocks are starting to appear in parts of northern England, and the current northerly airflow could see more arrive over the next few days. However, I was partly right, as following last week's brief sighting, one lucky visitor was in the right place to photograph one of these enigmatic…

Meteorological winter officially starts on Thursday, (1 December), and there are finally signs that winter is winning the battle against autumn in the natural world, too.

For me, winter has never truly arrived until I've seen the first "wild" swan of the year. I could argue that was today, when I watched a lovely adult whooper swan swimming around Island Mere, but it's also possible that this is the bird that, unusually…

We regularly talk about how hard our volunteers and wardens work to create the perfect conditions for wildlife, so it's great when this work is rewarded by visitors reporting stunning views of the wildlife. That has certainly been the case at Bittern Hide this week, where a new kingfisher perch was installed last week and these beautiful electric blue and orange birds have obliged immediately.

Kingfisher by Jon …

Yes folks, I have some more exciting news. Our starlings are back! 

The day after the fabulous new boardwalk to East Hide opened, we received reports from visitors that they had been watching a murmurartion of starlings from there. This obviously needed checking out, and I Friday evening I was able to confirm that about 10k starlings were indeed displaying over the reedbed before swooping in to roost behind South Hide. 

It's been a long time in the planning, and several weeks under construction, but at long last we're pleased to say that the new boardwalk to East Hide is open. It is accessed via a stunning platform from the North Wall, with a gentle ramp taking you down to the edge of the reedbed.

The path then winds its way between the dunes and reedbed, with a couple of lovely benches positioned on the wider passing places…

A lot has happened in the two weeks since my last blog, so I'll try to summarise them as briefly as I can.

Firstly, I can report that our contractors have finished the reprofiling work on East Scrape, which is slowly refilling with water and looks fantastic. The birds clearly think so too as today there are hundreds of ducks, especially teal, and dozens of gulls, including both common and Caspian gulls loafing around…

A lot has happened in the two weeks since my last blog, so I'll try to summarise them as briefly as I can.

Firstly, I can report that our contractors have finished the reprofiling work on East Scrape, which is slowly refilling with water and looks fantastic. The birds clearly think so too as today there are hundreds of ducks, especially teal, and dozens of gulls, including both common and Caspian gulls loafing around…

After the excitement of Tuesday's sightings at Island Mere, there have been further reminders this week of exactly why I, and so many other birdwatchers, love autumn. Yes, it can be frustrating at times, as the previous three weeks of westerly winds have shown, but it can also be full of exciting unpredictability.

Once the wind turned to the south-east yesterday, migrants finally started to arrive in force, with reports…

Wow! Wow! Wow! 

Regular readers will know that Island Mere Hide has always been my favourite place at Minsmere. I could easily spend a couple of hours there just sitting, watching, waiting...and chatting to visitors. Even a dull dreary day it's a special place, and I can expect to see at least one or two of our reedbed specialists. But today it was simply awesome.

I know it's easy to use words such as awesome, incredible…

We've just received a fabulous email from one of Minsmere's earliest ever RSPB volunteers, which I thought everyone would like to read. We love hearing your memories from Minsmere past, especially as we continue to celebrate 75 years of Minsmere.

Guest blog by Brian Morris, Minsmere volunteer in 1947

I have just returned from a short holiday in Suffolk. Whilst there I visited Minsmere and was surprised to find…

As regular readers will know, we've been celebrating 75 years of Minsmere as an RSPB nature reserve this year. It's also 60 years since the Scrape was first created by Bert Axell. With these two milestones in mind, two recent discoveries take on even more significance.

During the construction of the long-awaited new accessible boardwalk to East Hide, our contractors Gilleards have unearthed not one, but two pairs…

Autumn is a great time to enjoy a walk around Minsmere with a different perspective. Instead of focussing the attention on birds, it's well worth taking a wider perspective and enjoying the wonderful colours and varied fungi, especially on a beautiful sunny day like today.

Before I show you some examples of this autumn splendour, and a summary of sightings from the last few days, here's a heads up for some important…

The milder weather and southerly winds this week have delayed the arrival of winter visitors, though there was a brief brambling underneath the visitor centre feeders yesterday. In fact, there have been more late summer migrants passing through than new arrivals, with several hundred house martins and smaller numbers of swallows passing through during the week, as well as a lesser whitethroat and a few blackcaps in the…

The autumn is often a good time of year to look for one of our most popular birds, the bearded tit, and they have certainly been putting on a good show this week. Also known as bearded reedlings, or simply beardies, the name bearded tit is a real misnomer. They are neither tits, nor bearded. They are, in fact, more closely related to the parrotbills of southeast Asia, and the male's black "beard" is actually more of a…

We had great cause for celebration earlier this month as our oldest volunteer, Betty Nelson, celebrated her 102nd birthday in the cafe, and finally retired from her volunteering duties.

Betty blowing out her candles with fellow Minsmere volunteers Chris and Steve

Betty first started volunteering at Minsmere about 30 years ago, and many visitors will have met her during the 1990s and early 2000s when she regularly worked…

I love the unpredictability of birdwatching in autumn. On a calm day like today, it can be eerily quiet, apart from the mournful winter song of the robin, but if the winds swings to the northeast then birds may flood in from the continent, calling constantly as they pass overhead.

Even today, though, I was treated to some fantastic birdwatching, including spending several minutes marvelling at the flying skills of a female…

There has been a noticeable shift in the season this week, with summer coming to an abrupt end and a definite autumnal feel to the weather.  In fact, when I came in for our final moth morning of the year at 6.15 am today it was rather too chilly to still be wearing shorts! The sunrise was worth the early start though.

One of the first indicators of autumn is the first arrival of winter migrants, and today saw the discovery…

I have to start this blog by paying our respects to our patron, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2.  As you may have read elsewhere on our website or social media, we have marked the sad news of her death by closing all our visitor facilities for the day today. We will reopen as normal tomorrow.

When the Queen visited Minsmere with Bert Axell in the early 1960s, it would have looked very different to today. There was no visitor…

With Boris Johnson visiting the site for the proposed Sizewell C reactor today, we can't understand why a Prime Minister that claims to be tackling the nature crisis wouldn't spend some of his trip visiting Minsmere to better understand the effects the development will have on this internationally recognised and critical site for nature. Due to consent being granted against the recommendations of the Examining Authority…

Earlier in the summer I was fortunate to meet one of the UK's best young birdwatchers and campaigners. Mya-Rose Craig has been birdwatching all her life - she was taken on her first twitch at just nine days old - and has already managed to spot more than half of the world's bird species, but that only tells a small part of her story.

Birdgirl is much more than a tale of Mya-Rose's birding adventures with her family…

It can hardly have escaped anyone's attention that we are in the middle of one of the worst droughts in living memory. Here at Minsmere, as in most of the rest of Suffolk, we haven't had any recordable rain since late May. Consequently, much of the reserves looks more like a desert than a wetland. Even in a "normal" year (whatever that is), average annual rainfall on the Suffolk is less than in most of Turkey, but this…

Guest blog by Minsmere volunteer, Mark Solomons

Van Gogh had his sunflowers and Wordsworth romanticised daffodils. But one of Britain's most stunning yellow flowers has consistently been overlooked: gorse.

Yet gorse, which is native to Britain, shines like the sun for most of the year, has an exotic scent and plays a vital role for our wildlife, and even human health.

Literary giants have often written about gor…