Today, 2 February, is World Wetlands Day. This is an important event, at it marks the signing of an international treaty on wetland conservation, the RAMSAR Treaty, signed in the Iranian town of Ramsar on 2 February 1971.
Many of the world's most important wetlands, including RSPB Minsmere, are listed as RAMSAR sites, ensuring that their importance is recognised by governments and nature conservation organisations as sites of international importance for wetlands and wetland. Most RAMSAR sites are equally important for people, whether as places for recreation (as at Minsmere), food, flood protection or water quality.
As it was World Wetlands Day, I took the opportunity to stroll down to South Hide at lunch time and appreciate the wonder of Minsmere's wetlands. The sun was shining, the sky was mostly blue, and the colours were at their finest.
I was treated to some amazingly close views of shovelers at Wildlife Lookout, as you can see from these photos.
There were lots of ducks on West Scrape, despite the presence of a digger that is helping to further improve our wetland habitat by reprofiling some of the islands.
There were some equally close views of ducks at South Hide, including wigeons and teals. South Scrape also proved attractive to a variety of wading birds, including one avocet, one oystercatcher, three ringed plovers, 18 dunlins, 11 curlews, about 20 black-tailed godwits and several hundred lapwings. Although I didn't head round to East Hide, I could clearly see several pintails and tufted ducks on East Scrape too.
The red-throated diver had been reported behind South Hide again this morning, but it was clearly hiding from the wind while I was in the hide. Likewise, the slavonian grebe had relocated onto Island Mere this morning before it too went missing. There were, however, sightings of bitterns, otters, grey herons and marsh harriers at Island Mere.
If you would like to help celebrate World Wetlands Day by spotting some amazing wetland wildlife, why not join one of our wardens, Dave, at RSPB North Warren on Saturday morning when he'll be leading another Winter Wildfowl at North Warren walk. The walk starts at 10 am from the pay and display car park in Aldeburgh. Advance booking is recommended, so please call 01728 648281 to book. You might even be lucky enough to see one of the spoonbills that are currently at North Warren.