A good tern and another

I was eagerly optimistic as I left my desk at lunch time and walked down to Bittern Hide. I had recently heard over the radio that there had been many sightings of bitterns in flight today and I thought that today may be the day that I saw a bittern for the first time. As I strolled down the hill with the sun on my face I could hear a male bittern booming and I thought that definitely was a sign that I would be in luck today.

I think I was overly confident because on Monday lunchtime I had just a few minutes to spare and desperately wanted to see the wheatear that had been sighted that morning. My desire to see the wheatear was because for the month of April I have been looking at this glorious species on my RSPB calendar. I walked to the stone-curlew viewpoint along North Wall and within minutes my dash out of the office in the drizzle had been worth it because I was able to see the two stone curlews across the field which is always a very special sight of a species which is close to my heart. It wasn’t long afterwards that my attention was taken away and a male wheatear showed itself on a ridge in the field in front of the viewpoint. He was a beautiful bird and proudly kept appearing on this ridge to show himself to the small crowd at the viewpoint, standing still as if posing for the camera. I took a few photographs but admired him mainly through my binoculars.

As I walked to Bittern Hide today I stopped to talk to a couple of visitors and they made me feel much better about not having seen a bittern yet by telling me that Michaela Strachen had not seen a bittern before coming to Minsmere for Springwatch. Bittern Hide had the sun warming it and the reedbed was glowing. It was a lovely place to spend my lunch but the elusive bittern was not as forthcoming as the wheatear had been on Monday and I am still to see a bittern! I did enjoy lovely views of a marsh harrier stirring up the birdlife and floating over the reedbed as well as a little egret poised motionless in front of the hide.

I may not have been lucky today in the short space of time I spent looking for a bittern but our guides and visitor certainly were and the birdlife reported today was phenomenal. It has been a great day for terns as 80+ sandwich terns, 25+ common terns and a little tern were sighted on the scrape and a black tern was seen offshore flying south at 1.10 pm. There were at least three garganey on the reserve with a male seen from the public viewpoint and a pair were also seen on the Konik fields this morning. The common redstart has been a great talking point amongst the staff, volunteers and visitors this week and has been giving many people a great show at the bottom of Whin Hill. There were many sightings of the male today and we are hoping that they will choose an area on the reserve to nest this year. The common redstart is another species on my not yet sighted list so I am certainly hopeful that they stick around for a bit!

Sandwich terns by Jon Evans

Other highlights from today were three whitethroat were seen at in the Sluice bushes as well as from the car park and from North Wall and a lesser whitethroat at the Sluice Bushes and North Bushes. A kittiwake was also seen on the Scrape collecting nesting material. Island Mere proved popular for warblers with both reed warbler and sedge warbler being spotted from there.

Whitethroat by Jon Evans

Sedge warbler by Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)

One of the highlights of my day was seeing the beaming face of a gentleman who had seen a fulmar flying past offshore from Minsmere Reserve. We had a confirmed sighting yesterday from one of our guides. As I am writing this I am wondering whether he is still smiling, I’m pretty sure he is and I’m certain everyone reading this will be able to relate to his feelings and recall one of their all-time greatest sightings. I am hoping to experience this shortly when I catch my first ever sighting of a bittern. Watch this space!