Yes folks, I have some more exciting news. Our starlings are back!
The day after the fabulous new boardwalk to East Hide opened, we received reports from visitors that they had been watching a murmurartion of starlings from there. This obviously needed checking out, and I Friday evening I was able to confirm that about 10k starlings were indeed displaying over the reedbed before swooping in to roost behind South Hide.
We quickly released the news via Twitter and Facebook, and it was no surprise to see lots of people coming along to watch the show over the weekend. I don't blame them, as a big starling murmuration is one of the greatest natural spectacles in the world. We hope that with temperatures set to fall a bit this week there might be a further influx of starlings to swell the numbers. Hopefully, too, they'll stay with us for several weeks, but it can't be guaranteed, so plan your visit soon.
Wherever there are large flocks of birds, there are sure to be predators, and that's certainly the case with our murmurations. Most evenings there will up to eight marsh harriers coming to roost in the same area, and there's also a good chance of spotting a hunting peregrine, sparrowhawk or barn owl intent on starling for tea!
Barn owl by Steve Everett
If you want to watch the starling spectacular, then we recommend arriving no later than 3.20 pm to give you time to be in position for the action to start between 3.30 and 3.45 pm. You can watch them anywhere between Wildlife Lookout and Sluice, or from Bittern Hide or the dunes, or more distantly from North Wall or East Hide. Wrap up warm, though, as temperatures can fall very quickly in the afternoon - and you might want to give it a miss today as it is currently raining heavily!
Of course, starlings aren't the only birds flocking in large numbers to Minsmere for the winter. Hundreds of ducks, gulls and lapwings are on the Scrape. Teal are by far the most numerous, with wigeon, gadwall, shoveler, lapwing, herring and great black-backed gulls next, then smaller numbers of shelduck, black-headed, common and lesser black-backed gulls, plus one or two pintails, avocets, turnstones, dunlins, snipe, Caspian and yellow-legged gulls. A female goldeneye was a brief visitor yesterday, too.
Shelduck by Steve Everett
One or two snipe can also been seen at Island Mere, as well as regular bittern, great egret, bearded tit and marsh harrier. One of my colleagues glimpsed an otter there yesterday, and some visitors watched a stoat carrying away a moorhen immediately in front of the hide.
Great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch and marsh tit remain regular at the feeders, where goldfinches have probably replaced chaffinches and blue tits as the most numerous species. A small flock of lesser redpolls paused in the nearby birch trees on Friday, too.
Marsh tit by Les Cater
There have been one or two late reminder of summer over the weekend, but today's rain may have persuaded them that the season have finally changed. The adder showed between Bittern Hide and Island Mere until Saturday, several common darters were still flying around yesterday, and we had reports of both swallows and sand martins yesterday - but sadly not the three red-rumped swallows that were in nearby Walberswick for a few days.
Other unusual visitors this week have included a male hen harrier on Saturday morning, a couple of reports of snow buntings, a very late tern offshore today (presumably a Sandwich tern), an excellent passage of brent geese on Sunday, and a very unusual sighting of black-throated diver offshore yesterday.