Old friends and near misses

A lot has happened in the two weeks since my last blog, so I'll try to summarise them as briefly as I can.

Firstly, I can report that our contractors have finished the reprofiling work on East Scrape, which is slowly refilling with water and looks fantastic. The birds clearly think so too as today there are hundreds of ducks, especially teal, and dozens of gulls, including both common and Caspian gulls loafing around on East Scrape.

You will, however, still have to watch them from either North Hide, the Public Viewing Platform or the dunes for a few more days yet as work is not quite complete on the new boardwalk so East Hide remains closed. I had a sneak preview of the boardwalk earlier in the week and it looks superb. I'm really looking forward to watching bearded tits and reed buntings from this path once it opens, and to finally being able to encourage wheelchair users to visit East Hide and experience the wonderful wildlife viewing opportunities that it offers.

In terms of wildlife, the last two weeks have been a bit of a case what if and if only, at least as far as rare birds was concerned. On 27 October, news broke of an alpine accentor to the south of Aldeburgh, just a few miles along the coast. This is an exceptionally rare bird in the UK, being more typically found in the high mountains of Europe, so it certainly attracted a crowd of twitchers during the next couple of days. Amazingly, given its rarity, this was the second time that I had seen one in Suffolk, having watched one feeding around the Leiston Abbey ruins at Minsmere way back in March 2002. Alpine accentors are closely related to the more familiar dunnock, but bigger and more colourful.

Then on 29 October a couple of visitors reported a swift species flying over Minsmere's reedbed. Common swifts usually migrate south by mid August, so any swifts seen this late in the year always attract attention. Even more so this year, as there has been a big influx of pallid swifts into the UK over the last two weeks. This species breeds in southern Europe, and a few occasionally migrate north in the autumn, before relocating south, with the recent southerly airflow having brought more pallid swifts than usual to our shores. Unfortunately, they look very similar to common swifts, being slightly paler, scalier and pointed winged, but these features are so subtle that many cannot be confirmed to species level. While some of those who saw Minsmere's probable pallid swift were fairly confident of their ID, the photos taken were in conclusive, so this will have to go down as a common/pallid swift, and count as a near miss!

Another southern European/north African species that has also been seen in unusually large numbers in the UK during the last two weeks is a gorgeous moth known as a crimson speckled. Minsmere got in on the action when two were seen last weekend - one in the dunes and one very close to the visitor centre. In fact, this was the second new moth for the reserve list in quick succession, as our Intern, Emily, caught a cypress carpet in her moth trap a couple of days earlier!

It's also great to report that some more familiar species have been spotted recently, including an adder known by our guides as Stranger that was last seen four years ago - each individual adder has subtly different facial markings so our guides can identify them as individuals. Stranger has been showing well at times between Bittern Hide and Island Mere, especially when the sun is shining. We've also been excited to hear of more regular otter sightings again, including a family group of mum and two cubs that another volunteer guide was lucky enough to photograph at Bittern Hide on Thursday.

Otters by Keith Barton

Elsewhere in the reedbed, we're still getting regular sightings of bitterns, great egrets, bearded tits and marsh harriers and hearing Cetti's warblers and water rails that typically remain hidden. The last hobby was reported on 31 October, as was a house martin, while a very late sand martin was seen today! Ten Bewick's swans touched down briefly at Island Mere yesterday, having arrived from mainland Europe earlier in the day, but they have presumably carried on west.

Around the visitor centre, the feeders continue to attract large flocks of tits and finches, among which there are usually several marsh and coal tits, a nuthatch or two and a great spotted woodpecker, while a brambling was seen on Wednesday and a flock of three house sparrows this morning was an unusual record. Nearby, I spotted eight siskins in the alders around the pond this morning.

Among the ducks on the Scrape, there has been the odd goosander. Most of the waders are lapwings, but there have also been one or two ruff, redshank, snipe, avocets and black-tailed godwits and a rather late little stint to add to the interest. Flocks of linnets, goldfinches and pied wagtails remain on the Scrape, while more unusually, two snow buntings were seen on West Scrape today.

It's also great to report that at least four Dartford warblers have returned to the dunes, having failed to breed along their this summer, so keep your eyes peeled between East Hide and the Sluice and you may be lucky enough to spot them.

Finally, we're getting asked about starling murmurations, and the simple answer is that we don't have any yet this winter. They have been some at Hen Reedbed Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve, but I've not heard if they are still there. We will, of course, let you know if they arrive at Misnmere.