It seems that as far as the weather was concerned I picked the right week to leave the country, as while I was enjoying (some) sun in central France, the UK was experiencing somewhat variable, and at times very wet weather. And in typical Bank Holiday fashion, today has seen a return of cool, wet weather, which has put off all but a few hardy souls from visiting.
As for the birds, I perhaps chose the wrong two weeks to take my summer holiday, as I missed several good birds - though is there ever a good time to be away from Minsmere?
Highlights from the last two weeks on the Scrape included a pectoral sandpiper for a couple of days, a Temminck's stint for a day, upto ten wood sandpipers and several little stints and green sandpipers.
A pectoral sandpiper by Jon Evans
A wryneck spent three days around the pond - though sadly there has been no sign in today's rain. Hopefully this will be the forerunner of more as last summer/autumn saw at least six of these unusual woodpeckers visiting Minsmere. It's also been a good couple of weeks for passage migrants, with several sightings of both pied and spotted flycatchers, redstarts, whinchats and wheatears, as well as the usual lesser whitethroats, whitethroats and blackcaps. Perhaps the pick of the small migrants was a tree sparrow that was caught during the final Waveney Bird Club ringing demo of the year on Thursday. This is a rare migrant at Minsmere, usually in the autumn, and a difficult species to find in coastal Suffolk.
A tree sparrow by Jon Evans
Our avocets have mostly moved to the estuaries for the winter, but twelve remained this morning. There are good numbers of the commoner waders still on the Scrape, though, including 100+ black-tailed godwits, 50+ dunlins, 20+ ringed plovers and three common sandpipers. Duck numbers are starting to build too, with a little flock of 15 wigeons on East Scrape this morning, while the Suffolk coast population of feral barnacle geese are spending more time on the reserve - 250+ were present yesterday.
While bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tits remain quite elusive (especially in the wet and windy weather), otters and kingfishers continue to be seen daily at Island Mere and/or Bittern Hide. More unusually, a kingfisher was seen at the pond this morning.
The rain has not been conducive to good insect watching, but both hummingbird hawkmoth and broad-bordered bee-hawkmoth were seen around the buddleias outside the toilet block over the last few days, and a clouded yellow butterfly in the dunes.
With September starting tomorrow, I'm sure there are many more migrants still to arrive and pass through at Minsmere in the coming weeks. We're also getting ready to start the red deer rut safaris on 12 September. This is a great way to watch the deer - see http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/seenature/events/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-405405 for further details, or call us on 01728 648281 to book your tour.