You only need to enjoy a quick walk around the reserve to enjoy the spectacle of this week's species of the week from our 70 species to spot at Minsmere challenge: sheep's-sorrel.
Look at any of our grassy areas, and you'll soon see the carpet of red advancing towards you, like the Martian weed in HG Wells famous The War of the Worlds. I must confess to having not read the novel, but I love listening to Jeff Wayne's brilliant musical adaptation, narrated by the great Richard Burton, and on seeing scene below, I instantly recalled these lyrics:
"Next day, the dawn was a brilliant fiery red and I wandered though the weird and lurid landscape of another planet; for the vegetation which gives Mars its red appearance had taken root on Earth. As Man had succumbed to the Martians, so our land now succumbed to the Red Weed..."
Unlike in that novel though, there's nothing to fear from this red plant, which is a native inhabitant of the acid grasslands that form part of the local Sandlings heaths. Sheep's sorrel is a member of the dock family, and doesn't envelope everything around it in long red tentacles. It does, however, turn the acid grasslands a stunning red in late spring. It's much smaller than other docks, growing only a few centimetres tall, but look carefully at the tiny red flowers and arrow-shaped leaves and you'll notice the family resemblance to its larger relatives.
A close up of sheep's sorrel
Look carefully among the red haze and you should spot a number of other low-growing grassland plants, including common stork's-bill, dove's-foot crane's-bill, common cornsalad, changing forget-me-not and common stitchwort. If you'd like to learn more about Minsmere's grassland flowers, why not join Steve Massey as he leads a grassland flowers at Minsmere guided walk this Friday? Spaces are limited, so book yours quickly. For further details see https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/events-dates-and-inspiration/events/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-454386
There are other really obvious flowers to spot at the moment, with road verges lined with cow parsley, and our woods still filled with bluebells. The hawthorn, or May blossom, is looking particularly spectacular this year too.
Hawthorn blossom
Of course, where there's flowers, there are insects, too, and on my lunchtime walk I was pleased to see my first red-and-black cinnabar moth of the year, as well as several small copper butterflies, and a lovely green hairsteak along the Woodland Trail. Our butterfly monitoring volunteer also saw his first common blue butterflies of the year on Whin Hill. Another first this year, for me, was a Norfolk hawker dragonfly - again along the Woodland Trail. Better still, this path also produced several hairy dragonflies (as featured in my last blog), and I was even able to grab some photos of this lovely dragonfly.
Hairy dragonfly resting on a dead bracken leaf
As I've said before, these insects tend to attract predators, and as well as the nesting sand martins and swallows, you should be able to see swifts and hobbies feeding over the reedbeds. Marsh harriers and bitterns are now feeding young in their nests, so should be relatively easy to see (relatively easy for a bittern is, of course, still tricky). The Savi's warbler is still reeling at Island Mere, and the grasshopper warbler was heard a few times between North Wall and East Hide over the weekend.
At least 80 Mediterranean gulls, 100 avocets and up to 150 kittiwakes can be seen on the Scrape, as well as one or two little terns and little gulls, with both Caspian and yellow-legged gulls also seen over the last two days. Black-tailed godwits have increased to about 50, with two or three bar-tailed godwits among them. Other waders have included knot, dunlin, grey plover, curlew, turnstone and redshank this week, while an unusually large flock of ten oystercatchers landed on the Scrape today. A pair of pintails were unusually late visitors to West Scrape this morning, as was a drake wigeon last week, and there continue to be good numbers of shelducks plus a few gadwalls and shovelers.
Unusual visitors over the last few days have included five common cranes that flew over Whin Hill yesterday morning, a fulmar passing offshore this morning, and the odd red kite.