As it's a Monday, it's time for our second species of the week blog, focusing on one of the star species featured in our 70 species to spot at Minsmere challenge. This week's star is one of the UK's most famous songsters: the nightingale.
Nightingales hold a special place in our culture, as a bird featured widely in songs, poems and literature, yet for many people hearing one is not easy, and seeing one is even harder. There are several reasons for this. For starters, nightingales have a relatively limited range within the UK, being confined largely to the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Kent and Sussex, with more isolated populations north to Lincolnshire and west to Gloucestershire. Even this limited range is contracting as a result of both climate change and habitat loss.
As well as their limited range, there's a relatively short season for listening to nightingales. After spending the winter in the forests of west Africa, nightingales first return to the UK in mid April, quickly establishing territories in scrub and woodland at their remaining favoured locations. They will sing for about the next six weeks, and are usually silent by the end of May, so time is already running out this year.
Nightingale by Jon Evans
Nightingales are typical skulkers, remaining hidden within the often thick bushes of their scrub and woodland habitat - even more so when the trees are in full leaf. Even when in full song they can be very difficult to locate, and when not singing your chances of finding one are even slimmer. If you are lucky, you may spot the adults foraging for soil invertebrates close to the nest during June - as they did around the car park entrance at Minsmere last year. After the end of June, your best chance of seeing a nightingale is if one is caught during the summer ringing demonstrations.
Luckily, during the six weeks in which they do sing, nightingales can be quite easy to hear, allowing you to tick them off in the 70 species challenge. And what a song it is! However, you only have another couple of weeks to find them this year, and they seem to have deserted all of their usual haunts around the visitor trails this year. For the first time since I started working at Minsmere, we haven't heard them in either the North Bushes or outside the Work Centre, while the usual bird near the old BBC Springwatch studio has only sung very sporadically.
However, there are several nightingales on Westleton Heath, and a short walk there should prove successful. The best option is to follow the public footpath along the southern edge of the heath (from opposite the entrance to Kings Farm) - please ask at reception for details. Whilst on Westleton Heath, if you extend your walk you can also look for three of our five bonus heathland species: woodlark, Dartford warbler and green tiger beetle. The other two bonus species are nightjar, which can be heard at dusk and should be returning any day, and silver-studded blue butterfly, which are usually flying in June. (Look out for special 70th anniversary pin badge of the silver-studded blue which should be available in July.)
Of course, if you fail to find a nightingale this spring, why not continue with the challenge next year and plan a trip for late April or early May. There are, of course, may other species on the 70 species challenge that are much easier to locate, including little egret, mallard and black-headed gull. The water voles are showing very at the pond still, and at least 50 Mediterranean gulls remain on the Scrape along with avocets, common terns, little terns and black-tailed godwits. Late May is also a good time to look for hobbies, whitethroats, cuckoos, sand martins and swallows too, with the chance of few surprises if you're really lucky - a red kite was seen yesterday, three spoonbills were on the Levels on Saturday and the Savi's warbler continues to sing at Island Mere, for example.
On sunny days, it's now possible to find at least eight species of butterfly and five or six dragonflies and damselflies, whilst enjoying the fragrant scent of the bluebells in South Belt. The first four-spotted chaser dragonflies are now on the wing, and it won't be long till we start seeing yellow-horned poppy in flower in the dunes or southern marsh orchid and yellow flag in the wetlands.
Why not plan your next visit soon and get spotting.
Bluebell in South Belt