Today has probably been the best day of the summer so far with unbroken clear blue skies and a gentle cooling breeze making a walk around Minsmere's nature trails very pleasant - and much less oppressive than further inland. It was less comfortable in some of the hides, as they quickly heat up like greenhouses, but with so much wildlife to look for there's no need to spend too long in the hides.
One popular species today, for those lucky enough to see or hear it, was a turtle dove in the North Bushes. You may have seen elsewhere on the RSPB community that our scientists have recently discovered valuable information about turtle dove migration thanks to GPS tags fitted to a bird called Titan, which was ringed just down the road near Sizewell. Turtle doves are one of most rapidly declining species, in serious risk of extinction within my lifetime, so it is always a joy to see one and hear their gentle purring call.
Turtle dove by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Shortly after seeing this lovely dove at lunchtime, a couple of visitors pointed out another elusive bird to me - a water rail preening in the open on one of the pools along the North Wall. While not rare birds at Minsmere, it's not often that you get such good views as this.
Despite rapidly falling water levels on the Scrape (the result of the almost total lack of recordable rain for several weeks), there was a superb variety of birds on show from East Hide. The avocet chicks are mostly full grown now, but common tern and black-headed gull chicks could be seen wandering around most of the islands, while a pair of oystercatchers fed their three chicks close to the hide. Oystercatchers are unusual among waders in that the parents provide food for the chicks - most wader chicks are independent from day one. At one point the oystercatchers fed alongside a lovely summer plumage dunlin and a winter plumage turnstone, as well as a pied wagtail.
Oystercatcher and chick with pied wagtail and turnstone by Ian Barthorpe
Wader migration is really in full swing. Among the 150+ black-tailed godwits and 20+ redshanks on East Scrape today were, at various times, up to 30 knots, four bar-tailed godwits, ten beautiful summer plumage spotted redshanks, two ruffs, two little ringed plovers and two ringed plovers. There's also been a small passage of curlews over the last few days. Adding to the variety are various species of gulls - black-headed, Mediterranean (often in double figures), little (one or two), lesser black-backed and herring - and a couple of Sandwich terns. There are broods of mallards and shelducks on the Scrape and a few teal alongside gadwalls and shovelers, but with most ducks now in their eclipse (moult) plumage they are harder to identify. Luckily, our volunteer guides are often on hand to help.
The view from East Hide - how many species can you identify? Photo by Ian Barthorpe
Elsewhere, the sand martins are extremely busy around their colony, bitterns and marsh harriers continue to feed chicks, hobbies are active over the reedbed, and two pairs of great crested grebes have chicks at Island Mere.
One benefit of the warm dry weather is that it brings the insects out. There are increasing numbers and variety of dragonflies, butterflies, hoverflies and day flying moths to look for, several crickets and grasshoppers are now chirruping - and a few biting insects! Highlights of my lunchtime walk today included egg-laying emperor dragonflies, meadow brown and small tortoiseshell butterflies and this gorgeous six-spot burnet moth.