It was a perfect day for a stroll along the beach today. And I do mean a stroll, as the chill breeze made it slightly less suitable for sunbathing unless you could find a sheltered sunny spot. That wasn't a problem for me, as I was enjoying the walk anyway, and I was particularly interested in looking at the fabulous shingle flora.
Many visitors have commented this year about how impressive the sea kale has been on beach, especially in the area immediately north of sluice. It's coming to the end of the flowering season now, but there is certainly a lot of this large cabbage, with large clumps scattered along the whole length of the beach.
Among the kale is an equally impressive display of yellow-horned poppy. Like the kale, it has thick waxy, blue-grey leaves to reduce the loss of water through evapo-transpiration in the harsh coastal environment in which it grows. The two plants together certainly make for a fantastic sight, especially on beautiful sunny day like today.
If you look beneath the taller plants, there's a host of other shingle flora to spot. There's only one large clump of sea holly, which isn't quite in flower yet, but there are the pink flowers of restharrow, yellows of birds-foot trefoil, biting stonecrop and sticky groundsel, pink-and-white sea bindweed, white stars of English stonecrop and blue, thistle-like flowers of sheep's-bit, plus carpets of sea milkwort.
If you'd like to learn more about our shingle flowers, why not book on Steve's coastal flowers of Minsmere guided walk on Sunday. See here for details.
All the time that you're looking at the flora you'll also spot a variety of insects, such as common blue and small heath butterflies, various bees and crickets, and even a few dragonflies, especially black-tailed skimmers. There's also common terns and kittiwakes flying overhead between the Scrape and the sea. Don't forget to check the sea too. A huge flock of 600 common scoters were offshore today, along with a single male velvet scoter. I saw a large bull grey seal close to shore, and our volunteer guides spotted two harbour porpoises offshore too.
The beach isn't the only sandy area attracting interesting wildlife. Digger Alley is just starting to wake up. For those less familiar with the reserve, this a stretch of path through the North Bushes where several species of bees and wasps burrow beneath your feet into the loose sandy soil. The first pantaloon bees have been reported, and the first beewolves should emerge soon, but the early stars here are the sand wasps - large parasitic wasps that feed on green caterpillars. I enjoyed watching this one excavate its burrow today - I'll post a video on Facebook and Twitter later.
There were many other interesting sightings today. Highlights included a black adder crossing the path outside the visitor centre; a honey-buzzard and three common buzzards over the car park; bittern and marsh harrier sightings throughout the reserve; avocets, black-headed and Mediterranean gulls (pictured below), common and Sandwich terns, two spotted redshanks and black-tailed godwits on the Scrape; a greenshank on the Konik Field; and a good variety of butterflies and dragonflies.
We're looking forward to showing our visitors all of these species and many more during our Suffolk Day celebrations next week. Don't forget that non members living in Suffolk will get free entry for the day (Thursday 21 June), we'll be launching our Minsmere Treasure Trail (no prizes, just pride) and our volunteer guides will be leading some Suffolk Day guided walks. We hope to see you there.