This week's blog comes with a warning. There's lots of mention of food, so if you're hungry, please look away now and come back later!
Firstly, we have very important news for lovers of Minsmere's famous cheese scones, cakes, pasties and other delicious goodies from the cafe. Our cafe opening hours are changing from 1 May. In response to feedback from our visitors, we're opening half an hour earlier, at 9.30 am each day. Consequently, we'll also be closing half a earlier at 4 pm. This means that anyone arriving for a guided walk will be able to grab a drink or snack before they start. If you return after the cafe closes, then you will still be able to buy an ice cream or a cold drink in the shop.
Of course, for most of our visitors, the cafe is not the main reason for a trip to Minsmere, and with so much amazing wildlife to see, a visit in spring is a truly spectacular day out.
One of the most impressive spectacles in spring is watching the Hobbies hawking for damselflies, St Mark's flies and Sand Martins, with at least six of these slender falcons already back from Africa and putting on a fabulous show at Bittern Hide.
While some of our larger insects have to run the gauntlet of hunting Hobbies, Swallows and Sand Martins, others have been snapped up by birds that are more used to catching beetles, crickets or caterpillars. Emperor moths, for example, are huge colourful moths that are always an unexpected and popular sighting for birdwatchers, but this also makes them a prime target for avian predators too. One of our regular visitors was lucky enough to spot his first ever emperor moth this week, but unfortunately this male Stonechat had got there first!
Stonechat with emperor moth by Rich Gannon
Another regular photographed a similarly unlucky emperor moth being eaten by a Woodlark on Westleton Heath, too.
Woodlark by Les Cater
It's not a good time of year to be an insect as most of our summer migrants have now returned from Africa to enjoy the glut of food available to them in northern Europe, including all the regular warblers. Highlights this week include Grasshopper Warblers from North Wall and the new boardwalk, several Cuckoos and the first Swifts over the reedbed. Even our resident birds are at it too, as I watched a Robin feeding a newly fledged chick outside reception this morning!
Rarer visitors this week have included Ring Ouzel and Redstart from the bridleway along our entrance road and a Whinchat in North Bushes, plus Cattle Egret and Common Crane over the reedbed. Perhaps the best sighting of the week, though, has been the Harbour Porpoise offshore all day today
Redstart by Christine Hall
It is, however, a good time to look for insects, with the first Large Red Damselflies and Hairy Dragonflies now reported, as well as butterflies such as Speckled Wood, Orange Tip, Small Copper and Green Hairstreak and harder to spot species like Green Tiger Beetles and Glow-worm larvae.
It's not just Hobbies and Sand Martins on show at Bittern Hide either, with Bitterns and Marsh Harriers often being seen and several sightings of Stoats, Otters, Water Rails and a Kingfisher. If you don't see a Bittern they you have a good chance of hearing one as there has been a record count of 13 booming males this year.
Bittern by Steve Everett
It's all action on the Scrape, too, where huge flocks of Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls, Kittiwakes, Common and Sandwich Terns and Avocets are now gathering. Other gulls to look for include Common, Herring, Lesser and Great Black-backed, and even the odd Little Gull. Oystercatchers, Lapwings, Redshanks and Ringed Plovers are on territories, while passage waders include Bar- and Black-tailed Godwits, Curlews, Dunlins, Ruff, Common Sandpiper and Spotted Redshank. At least one Garganey remains among the ducks on the Scrape, too.
Returning to food, we only have a places left for our Dawn Chorus Experiences on 13 and 20 May, which include a delicious full English breakfast (or vegan/veggie equivalent), or if 4 am is too early, then why not book onto a Sounds of Spring walk at 7.30 am on Tuesdays, which finished with a bacon or sausage butty and tea/coffee. Full details of how to book onto these, or other, walks are at www.events.rspb.org.uk/minsmere