After a beautiful, springlike day yesterday, today has once again dawned dull, though at least the rain and wind have deserted us. As a result, it;'s still quite pleasant walking around - providing you're dressed appropriately with gloves, hat, waterproof/windproof coat, etc.
While the weather may be dull and uninspiring, the wildlife certainly adds a welcome splash of colour to any visit to Minsmere. You'll see some of that colour as soon as you arrive, with vibrant yellow flowers adorning the gorse bushes around the edge of the car park. Wait patiently around the visitor centre and another flash of gold may alert you to the arrival of a goldfinch on the feeders to join the multi-hued chaffinches, blue tits and pheasants.
Gorse in flower to brighten up a winter day
Visit any of the hides overlooking the Scrape, and there's a multitude of colours to spot: drake mallards sport their bottle-green heads and purple breasts; drake shovelers also have bottle-green heads but it's their chestnut flanks and white belly that are more likely to catch your eye; wigeons add a touch of pink and chestnut, capped off by blue-grey bill and yellow forehead; teals mix green and orange heads with speckled pink breasts and creamy patch below the tail; bright white shelducks stand out from the crowd with their crimson bill and chestnut breast band.
Of course, the female ducks are less obvious and easily merge into their surroundings. Gadwalls, too, can be easily overlooked but bring a mix of grey brown and black into the equation. So too do pintails, one or two of which are lurking among the throng. Drake pintails do stand out though with their long, slender, chocolate-brown necks with long white stripe down them.
There is one other duck on the Scrape that adds a touch of the exotic to a visit, should you manage to find it, and that's our returning drake mandarin. Last year it spent the winter displaying to a female mallard on West Scrape, and it's back for another winter on the Scrape. Mandarins are an intricate mix of orange, purple, cream and black, with a red bill and unusual "sails" on their back, making them highly distinctive. Originating from China, mandarins are established as breeding birds in several parts of the UK, having descended from captive stock.
A drake mandarin with moorhen for company
More colour is provided on the Scrape in the form of a large flock of dark green, black, white and cream lapwings whose calls mingle with those of teals and wigeons to provide the soundtrack to winter on the Scrape. The other waders present at the moment are largely grey or brown above and white below: tiny dunlins, medium sized redshanks, snipe and turnstones or the larger black-tailed godwits and curlews. At certain times of day there are various gulls on the Scrape too, including the black-headed, common, herring and the huge great black-backed gulls. The paler glaucous gull may put in an appearance too, though our guides have not reported it since Wednesday.
Further colour is provided in the reedbed by the regular appearance of a kingfisher or two at either Bittern Hide or Island Mere, or both. Up to four goosanders have been seen on Island Mere on several occasions over the last few days too. Less colourful, but equally popular when they are appear, are the otters, bitterns, water rails and Cetti's warblers, while above the reeds look out for soaring marsh harriers or perhaps a bearded tit flitting among the seedheads. Keep your eyes open, too, for a very distinctive pale-phase common buzzard that is spending much of its time in the Island Mere area.
There's plenty of colour in the woods too. In particular look around the South Belt Crossroads area for an impressive flock of up to 150 bright yellow-green siskins, or for mixed flocks of pink, black and white long-tailed tits with other tit species, and the gorgeous olive-green goldcrest with it's lovely golden crown stripe. Perhaps you'll spot a green woodpecker, with its bright yellow rump and red crown, or a pink-brown jay with bright blue wing panel.
Jay by Peter Simpson (blueskybirds.co.uk)
I didn't see the mandarin on the Scrape when I walked around yesterday but I did see two beautiful magpies in flight across it, their wings and tails shining blue-green in the sunlight. I was also lucky enough to catch the male stonechat from the public viewpoint with its glowing reddish-brown breast. Lovely.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.