An Egg-citing Easter

What a weekend! With the dust finally settling (literally following Storm Katie's exploits), it's time to reflect on another exciting few days.

The fabulous weather on Good Friday tempted you all out in you hundreds, with Minsmere experiencing one of its busiest days ever. As Amy said in her blog, it was great to see so many happy faces, There was some good wildlife to spot too, including the first sand martins and swallows of the year.

The crowds to visit over the weekend too, but while children were busy opening (and eating) their Easter eggs on Sunday, birdwatchers were getting even more excited about an unusual visitor to the Scrape. The bird in question was a gull that should be on the Pacific coast of the USA, so was many hundreds of miles from home - a Thayer's gull.

Before you start rushing to look in your field guides, I should point out that unless you have a North American guide you probably won't find Thayer's gull. The reason for this is not just it's rarity in the UK, but the fact that, according to many birdwatching authorities, it is not a full species but a distinctive race of Iceland gull. However, in some countries Thayer's gull has now been determined to be a species in its own right, and it certainly a distinctive bird. 

This particular individual, the first of its kind seen in Suffolk, spent most of Sunday afternoon on the Scrape, attracting a lot of admiring glances and discussion from visitors, who were keen to try to confirm it's identification.  To see some photos of the bird, click here. The gale force winds yesterday, due to Storm Katie, meant that few gulls were present on the Scrape, but the Thayer's gull was seen twice on the South Levels. Sadly (especially as I haven't seen it) there have been no reports so far today.

This wasn't the only scarce gull seen over the weekend, as there were also sightings of glaucous, Iceland, Caspian, yellow-legged and Mediterranean gulls at various times. With large numbers of the five commoner species (black-headed, common, herring, lesser and great black-backed) all present, it has been a real feast for gull watchers.

Thankfully, there have been many more species to spot for those less inclined to watch gulls. Avocet numbers have increased dramatically this morning, with more than 200 birds on the Scrape. Other waders, in varying numbers, include black-tailed godwits, curlews, dunlins, knots, redshanks, oystercatchers and ringed plovers, while up to three jack snipe have been at North Hide. Although duck numbers are decreasing, a lovely drake garganey is a highlight at North Hide, and the two whooper swans were still at Island Mere on Sunday.

Avocet by Jon Evans

Migrants are now arriving in force too. As well as the sand martins and swallows, we had the first house martin over the weekend, several blackcaps are singing this morning, chiffchaffs are increasingly widespread, and a stone-curlew has been seen on the field NW of the North Wall this morning (please only look for these shy birds from the North Wall watchpoint).

With many birds already starting to breed, we have now closed the North Bushes trail until next autumn to minimise disturbance.

Other highlights this weekend have included lots of adder sightings, regular bitterns, bearded tits, water rails and marsh harriers in the reedbed, and the odd firecrest. Add to that some lovely blackthorn blossom, flowering ground ivy, and the occasional bumblebee and there's certainly plenty to spot at Minsmere this week. And there's plenty of family activities to keep the younger ones interested.

Ground ivy by Ian Barthorpe