Did you take part int he Big Garden Birdwatch at the weekend? With the upturn in the weather, it had a serious impact on the numbers of birds visiting y garden. Where I'd seen ten different species in ten minutes during the frost a week previously, my hour-long count on Sunday morning yielded a mere six species: 12 starlings (down from the usual 30 or so), five blackbirds, two woodpigeons, two robins (we rarely see more than one), one brief great tit, and our now regular male pied wagtail. Frustratingly, our regular goldfinches, chaffinches, greenfinches and blue tits remained the wrong side of the neighbour's fence, the collared doves and wren were completely absent, and we had a rare visit from two long-tailed tits abut six hours after the count had finished!
I will, of course, be submitting my results, as they were representative of the hour that I had chosen, but it's always disappointing when your expected species don't arrive.
It's similarly frustrating when birds that have been showing well all morning do a runner just before you arrive, as happened to me when I went in search of our great white egret just after lunch yesterday. It had been feeding alongside a little egret just behind the Wildlife Lookout for several hours until about five minutes before I arrived. How can such a big white bird disappear so easily? It is still around, so hopefully I'll get another chance.
A great white egret with female mallard and drake gadwall by Ian Clarke
White seems to be a bit of a theme this week, as a third white heron was spotted on the South Levels yesterday: a spoonbill. Our first winter glaucous gull continues to commute between the beach (especially the sluice outfall) and the South Levels. Another "white-winged" gull was seen at Island Mere today in the form of a Mediterranean gull, though as a second year bird this one has black tips to its primaries and would have been quite tricky to spot among the hundreds of common gulls there.
The glaucous gull on the beach yesterday by Adam Rowlands
A surprise sighting today was that of a slavonian grebe close to shore, with another spotted farther out - this is a less than annual visitor to Minsmere but comes almost a year to the day since one was found in the North Marsh ditch! Other birds offshore at the moment include red-throated divers, great crested grebes and common scoters.
On the Scrape, duck numbers are slightly down following the thaw, but do include the odd pintail and tufted duck, while waders are restricted to a handful of dunlins, black-tailed godwits, redshanks and some very showy snipe.
Apart from the egrets, the highlights in the reedbed continue to be water rails, marsh harriers and bearded tits, though there are also regular sightings of bitterns and otters. A water shrew again made a brief appearance at Island Mere this afternoon, too.
Not to be outdone, and returning to where I began, our feeders are still attracting good numbers of tits and finches, including both coal and marsh tits.
Finally, a reminder that, as from tomorrow, Minsmere returns to our summer opening times, meaning that the shop and reception will stay open until 5 pm, and the cafe until 4.30 pm - giving you more time to sample our cakes and do a spot of shopping.
Mercifully the lovely Clive was in Island Mere Hide to tell us exactly what I spotted swimming about! I think a water shrew's a first for me.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.