After the excitement of Tuesday's sightings at Island Mere, there have been further reminders this week of exactly why I, and so many other birdwatchers, love autumn. Yes, it can be frustrating at times, as the previous three weeks of westerly winds have shown, but it can also be full of exciting unpredictability.
Once the wind turned to the south-east yesterday, migrants finally started to arrive in force, with reports of various seabirds passing offshore along the Suffolk coast, including pomarine and Arctic skuas and sooty shearwaters from Minsmere, with a puffin and a Sabine's gull elsewhere on the coast. It was also a great day for passing wildfowl, with wigeon, teal and dark-bellied brent geese being joined by the odd goldeneye or red-breasted merganser.
As well as seabirds, the change in wind direction brought an arrival of smaller migrants, such as redwings, fieldfares, skylarks and goldcrests. These in turn, attract predators, and at least five short-eared owls were recorded flying in from the sea yesterday. In fact, my day started extremely well when I spotted a peregrine circling over the car park only for one of our regular visitors to see a short-eared owl circling immediately above it!
Peregrine by Matt Parrott
Short-eared owls are one of the easier owls to see, in the right location and season, as they regularly hunt by day. However, at Minsmere they are mainly passage migrants, seen flying in from the sea or being disturbed from the dunes when they've stopped for a rest after the long sea crossing. We therefore tend to see them in October, and again in March/April before they return to Scandinavia, so you have to be in the right place at the right time.
Short-eared owl by Lizzie Bruce
My luck is obviously in this week, as hot on the heels of yesterday's owl, I had superb views of another over East Scrape this afternoon. I can often go several years without seeing one here at all! But it got even better than that on today's walk. I had high hopes of finding a rare warbler or bunting blown in on the passing weather front, and set off towards the Sluice Bushes in expectation. Arriving at the sluice, two of our regular visitors, John and Richard, pointed out a purple sandpiper feeding on the sluice outfall: another bird that I don't see at Minsmere very year.
There was a lovely flock of tits flitting around the Sluice Bushes, among which I found a couple of tiny goldcrests. Suddenly I glimpsed the broad white supercilium of a firecrest among them, and enjoyed excellent views of this spectacular bird. Sadly no rare warbler appeared, though I did find a chiffchaff, and there was a brief flutter of excitement when a female bunting appeared in front of me. Could it be a little bunting - a bird that I have never seen but had been reported at nearby Sizewell yesterday. No, I managed a good enough view to confirm the ID as female reed bunting. A lovely bird, but not especially rare.
Female reed bunting by Steve Everett
Returning to the sluice for a quick chat with John and Richard, my timing was perfect as John called: "Merlin flying south over the sea!" Merlins are our smallest falcons. They are winter visitors, and like the earlier owl, are most likely to be seen on migration. They typically hunt by flying very fast and low in pursuit of a hapless songbird (much like male sparrowhawks which are often misidentified as merlins), or perch on a low post in open ground. Somehow, despite working at Minsmere for almost 20 years, I had never been in the right place at the right time, and merlin was a noticeable gap on my Minsmere bird list. At last, I have filled that gap as, despite only having binoculars rather than a telescope, I was able to watch this magnificent raptor powering south, just above the waves. Thanks John.
Of course, there are still hundreds of ducks on South Scrape; bearded tits at Island Mere and near South Hide; regular sightings of great egrets, bitterns, kingfishers and even a late hobby at Island Mere; green woodpeckers in the North Bushes; as well as nuthatch and great spotted woodpecker on the feeders, so even if your luck is not in, you're still guaranteed some exciting sightings during the autumn.