After a dull, damp weekend and a very wet Monday, today has been a gorgeous spring day - if a little chillier than last week. With the dawning of May, hopefully we've seen the last of the wintry weather and can really forward to spring, and a successful breeding season ahead.
Birdsong is beginning to fill the air, with garden warblers, blackcaps and both common and lesser whitethroats singing throughout the reserve's woods and scrubby areas, as well as the more familiar chaffinches, robins, wrens and dunnocks. Nightingales continue to sing on Westleton Heath, alongside turtle doves and woodlarks, but remain absent from the main visitor trails.
The Savi's warbler is still being heard intermittently from Island Mere Hide, and a grasshopper warbler is equally difficult to hear between East Hide and the North Wall. Reed and sedge warblers and reed buntings can be heard much more readily in the reedbed, though.
In the woods, many of the nestboxes are now occupied by blue, great, coal and marsh tits, with the adults actively searching for caterpillars to feed their broods. If you look carefully as you walk through the woods, you may find other occupied holes where our woodpeckers are nesting. If you do, stand well back and watch from a distance to allow the adults to visit the nest undisturbed.
One such nest, close to the adder trail, belongs to our latest species of the week, the green woodpecker. When not in the nest, these large, distinctive birds are more likely to be found on Minsmere's grasslands, searching for ants that they slurp up with their long sticky tongues. Whin Hill is a particularly good area, but also look around the North Bushes.
Green woodpecker by Jon Evans
Elsewhere, our wetlands are alive with birds, especially the Scrape. You can't miss 1500 pairs of black-headed gulls, but check them carefully as at least 100 Mediterranean gulls are also present. they've been joined this week by increasing numbers of mainly immature common gulls, and up to 30 kittiwakes from the nearby colony at Sizewell. there are also good numbers of both common and Sandwich terns, with the first little terns noted over the weekend too.
Kittiwake by Oscar Dewhurst
Avocet numbers have increased significantly this week, and they've been joined by several black- and bar-tailed godwits, plus the first common sandpipier, greenshank, spotted redshank and ruff of the spring. A few whimbrels and dunlins have been seen too.
Although duck numbers have decreased noticeably, there are still good numbers of gadwalls, shovelers and shelducks, while a lovely drake garganey was on the Scrape on Sunday and the Konik Field yesterday. Surprisingly, a drake mandarin flew over the reedbed yesterday too.
Otters, water rails, bearded tits and marsh harriers continue to be seen in the reedbed, with hobbies overhead and bitterns booming from the depths.
There are also good numbers of peacock and orange tip butterflies on the wing, and I saw the first St Mark's flies of the year today - good news for the swallows and hobbies that feed on these large flies.