It's been another exciting week at Minsmere, especially around the edge of the reserve, away from the main visitor trails. The red-backed shrike remains on Westleton Heath, around the red deer rut viewpoint, though it can be elusive at times. Although it usually only visible quite distantly, our deer safari drivers have been fortunate enough to have some great views, as can be seen from Jon Evans' photo (below).
Incredibly, a great grey shrike turned up just a few hundred metres away in the same area of Westleton Heath on Thursday, and remained until at least Saturday, while another was seen at the opposite end of the reserve close to Eastbridge for a day. Great greys are regular autumn (and occasional spring) passage migrants, with a few overwintering in the UK, so it would be nice if one of these lovely birds would linger for a while.
Those birdwatchers heading to see the Westleton heath shrikes have been rewarded with good views of the rutting red deer, while some have also been lucky to spot some of the stone-curlews that have gathered for the autumn before migrating south.
The other popular area for birdwatchers this weekend has been the North Bushes/North Wall area. This has been a great area to watch migrant thrushes, fresh in from Scandinavia, including flocks of up to 1000 fieldfares. Wow! What a sight! Fieldfares are among my favourite birds, and it's been a joy to hear there chacking calls as they fly between grassland and scrub. Among the hordes have been good numbers of redwings and starlings, double-figure counts of song thrushes, several blackbirds and at least two ring ouzels. This field is also a good place to spot lapwings.
Fieldfare by Jon Evans
With such attractive, easy to spot birds, it's little surprise that the yellow-browed warblers spotted this week have been less popular, especially as sightings are usually fleetingly brief. Two shore larks that spent a day in the dunes were seen well by some people but could also be very hard to track down. Similarly the Lapland bunting in the same area.
With so many exciting small migrants around, the Scrape has played second (or even third) fiddle this week, despite being packed with flocks of dabbling ducks. At least eight spotted redshanks, two greenshanks, two grey plovers and a few dunlins remain on the Scrape, and a jack snipe has been seen a couple of times.
Island Mere also continues to prove popular, with much of the reedbed wildlife becoming more obliging as we head towards winter. Otters, in particular, are seen more frequently, while bitterns, kingfishers and water rails put in regular appearances.. Beaded tits are also continuing to show well.
Don't forget to look at the wildlife around the visitor centre too, with coal and marsh tits being regular on the feeders and the chance of spotting a brambling, great spotted woodpecker or treecreeper nearby. The magpies, pheasants and grey squirrels will allow very close approach too.
Finally for today, two of our regular young visitors, Oliver and Freya, were very excited to show me this fabulously camouflaged green brindled crescent moth when I walked into the visitor centre today.