Many rare and interesting birds have been spotted at Minsmere, and in recent years one small reedbed pool has been home to some of the most unexpected. Wind your clock back to July 2015 and you might remember one of the biggest surprises (in every sense of the word big) when a black-browed albatross briefly settled on this pool. Almost exactly 12 months later, the same pool was the scene of a large twitch after the discovery of an equally impressive bird - the now infamous western purple swamphen - AKA big blue chicken or purple swampy thing.
Apart from choosing the same small pool, there was another thing in common with both birds - they were missed by our then Senior Site Manager. As a result, local birdwatchers named this part of the reserve as The Pool of Despair. Minsmere's wardens know it as South Girder, but to most visitors it is known simply as the pool behind South Hide.
Yesterday this pool hit the headlines again when another unusual visitor was found there, though this one is nowhere near as unusual as the albatross or the swamphen. It was, however, a very welcome discovery as it was the first sighting at Minsmere for about 10 years, although it used to be a more regular visitor. The bird in question was a ferruginous duck - a scarce visitor to the UK. Ferruginous ducks breed across SE Europe and Central Asia, spending the winter around the eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Subcontinent, with a few found in Spain and Portugal. Only a handful of them visit the UK each year, when they are often seen among flocks of other diving ducks.
Ferruginous ducks are also known as white-eyed pochards. As this alternative name suggests, they are closely related to pochards and tufted ducks. Adult males are a dark rusty brown (hence ferruginous) with a white eye, white undertail and broad white wingbar, as well as a distinctive head shape. Females and young birds are less distinctive, more closely resembling a female tufted duck. The bird found yesterday is a young male, so was a great spot by the visitor who first located it. It's still favouring the same pool today, alongside a flock of gadwalls, wigeons, mallards and shovelers.
Excited as I was to see the ferruginous duck yesterday, it wasn't this scarce duck that really caught my attention around South Hide. I hadn't reached the hide before I heard several bearded tits pinging in the reedbed, and later I spotted small groups dashing above the reeds - the calm sunny mornings this week are perfect for spotting this popular bird, so it's worth making an early start to visit Minsmere. Even better, as I reached the hide I heard a sound that I have missed at Minsmere for the last 7 months - the distinctive song of a Cetti's warbler! Almost all of our Cetti's warblers were wiped out by the Beast for m the East, so it's good news that a couple of birds have returned to the main visitor part of the reserve.
Cetti's warbler by Liz Cutting
It got even better as I sat down to spot the duck when a bittern flew straight towards me and dropped into the reeds close to the pool. A couple of minutes later a marsh harrier flew low overhead too. And at South Belt Crossroads I heard a water rail. That was all of Minsmere's famous reedbed birds in just a few minutes.
There were two key reedbed species that I hadn't seen yesterday, so at lunchtime today I wandered down to Island Mere and came up trumps once again. At least six hobbies were hunting dragonflies over the reedbed and Whin Hill, with a couple of kestrels over Whin Hill too. After scanning the mere for a minutes I found my other target species too: otter! In fact, there were three otters - mum and cubs - swimming rapidly across the middle of the mere before I lost them to sight in the glare of the sun. One of our volunteers spotted time yesterday too, so it could be a good time to look for otters.
Otter by Ian Clarke - if only I'd seen it this well!
Of course, there's a variety of other wildlife to look for this week. Hundreds of ducks are now feeding on the Scrape alongside a few waders - black-tailed godwits, lapwings, snipe, spotted redshanks, dunlins, green and common sandpipers. Please note, however, that wardens will be continuing the autumn management programme on the Scrape tomorrow, so there may be some disturbance on both East and South Scrape.
There are several warblers still visiting the North Bushes, including blackcaps, whitethroats, lesser whitethroats and chiffchaffs, as well as bullfinches and various other tits and finches. The Waveney Bird Club will be ringing in the North Bushes tomorrow, so you may have the chance to see of these birds in the hand - another good reason to plan a visit.