One comment we hear regularly from visitors in mid July is "it's quiet". Indeed it is, in the sense that most birds have stopped singing and the reserve can be eerily silent at times. But in terms of things to see, it's from from quiet, though you may have to change your focus a little.
Mid summer is always a trickier time for watching woodland and reedbed birds as they hide away to moult following a hectic breeding season, though the usual suspects will still be present if you're patient enough. Family parties of tits and finches move through the woods in foraging parties, while reed and sedge warblers and bearded tits flit from reed to reed in search of insects. Bitterns can be harder to spot among tall thick reeds, but may still be seen flying from one feeding pool to another. Marsh harriers are a bit easier, with many youngsters learning how to hunt for themselves, and kingfisher sightings become more frequent as fledged young are pushed off their parents' territories farther upstream.
But, of course, Minsmere is about much more than birds, and those same woods and reedbeds that may be referred to as quiet are, in fact, teeming with insect life, so now is the time to look down and focus up close and discover a whole new world of wildlife. Some insects are easier to spot and identify than others - butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies are much easier than bees, hoverflies or parasitic flies for example. But it's worth the effort.
Yesterday I set myself the challenge of finding three of Minsmere's special summer butterflies. The first was the tiny silver-studded blue, a heathland species that only occurs in a handful of parts of the UK where suitable habitat exists. At Minsmere they can be found around the northern part of the reserve on Westleton Heath, so I stopped for a quick walk on my way in. The flowering bell heather and wood sage looked gorgeous and was clearly popular with honeybees, hoverflies and commoner butterflies such as gatekeeper and ringlet, and after a few minutes I spotted a tiny brown butterfly - a female silver-studded blue. Two delicate males quickly followed. Target one achieved.
Over lunch I headed to Canopy Hide in search of target number two - purple hairstreak. This can be a difficult butterfly to find as they tend to remain high in the oak canopy, necessitating neck strain from peering upwards. A visit to Canopy Hide makes seeing them easier as you are actually up in the canopy. Even then, they are well camouflaged against the leaves, but with some patience I managed to locate two of these lovely butterflies, along with a couple of commas, several brown hawker dragonflies and common darters.
Purple hairstreak by Jon Evans
Target number three can sometimes be seen from Canopy Hide too, but I didn't see one there, so instead I walked along the Woodland Trail through clouds of common darters, brown hawkers and a beautiful hoverfly called Voluncella zonaria and soon enough I spotted a stunning white admiral sunning itself on the path. This was my twelfth species of butterfly for the day, with little effort.
White admiral by Jon Evans
A short walk on Sunday morning had revealed a similar number of dragonfly and damselfly species as well as our fascinating array of mining bees and digger wasps along the North Wall, confirming how varied the insect life is at present.
Of course, there are also birds to be seen, and for this the best place is the Scrape, especially East Hide. With migration well underway it's difficult to predict exactly which species might be present, but they could include up to nine species of gull, four terns and up to 20 types of wader. As an indication of this variety, the counts on East Scrape this morning included: 208 avocets, three little ringed plovers, one ringed plover, three golden plovers, 24 lapwings, seven knot, two little stints, one sanderling, 75+ dunlins, eight ruffs, 325 black-tailed godwits, two curlews, 23 spotted redshanks, two redshanks, one greenshank. one green sandpiper, two common sandpipers and a turnstone, plus a few oystercatchers, while curlew sandpiper and whimbrel have also been reported in recent days. Add in one or two little, Arctic and Sandwich terns, several little gulls, Mediterranean gulls and kittiwakes and there's plenty to challenge your ID. Also of interest on the Scrape are large numbers of little egrets and grey herons.
Little egret by Jon Evans