Windhovers and furzechats

I love the unpredictability of birdwatching in autumn. On a calm day like today, it can be eerily quiet, apart from the mournful winter song of the robin, but if the winds swings to the northeast then birds may flood in from the continent, calling constantly as they pass overhead.

Even today, though, I was treated to some fantastic birdwatching, including spending several minutes marvelling at the flying skills of a female kestrel around the sluice. Watching her hovering, head held perfectly skill in search of an unsuspecting vole, it's easy to see why they earned the nickname of windhover. I've always loved kestrels, ever since I joined the YOC, predecessor of RSPB Wildlife Explorers way back in 1977, because the symbol of the YOC was a hovering kestrel. 

The dunes were alive with avian activity, too: stonechats were perched on almost every gorse bush - hence the old colloquial name of furzechat (furze itself being an alternative name for gorse). Almost as numerous in the dunes were robins, and many of these were probably winter visitors, newly arrived from Scandinavia. Other familiar "garden" birds in the dunes included wrens, dunnocks, blue tits and goldfinches, while  a lovely little flock of linnets proved to be particularly obliging.

Female linnet

There are still a few lingering summer visitors in the scrub around the Sluice and North Bushes, including spotted flycatchers, lesser whitethroats and chiffchaffs today and whinchats yesterday, while the first snow bunting of the winter was a brief visitor on Saturday. A very late juvenile cuckoo remained on the Scrape until Tuesday, but has not been seen since.

On the Scrape some of the mallards and wigeons are starting to acquire their brighter colours, but the teals, gadwalls and shovelers remain in their drab moult plumage. A couple of female pintails have returned to South Scrape, and small flocks of feral geese remain. Wader numbers typically decline by mid September, but there are still one or two of several species present: dunlin, grey plover, wood sandpiper, green sandpiper, spotted redshank and black-tailed godwit have all been seen today, but the last of the avocets appear to have moved away to the local estuaries. A flock of seven spoonbills flew north during the week too.

Offshore, some birdwatchers have spotted red-throated divers, gannets, common scoters and the odd Arctic or long-tailed skua passing by, while one of my colleagues saw four harbour porpoises close to shore today. On Tuesday I got a major surprise when I spotted a very early juvenile Iceland gull flying south.

It's great to see work progressing on East Scrape, where contractors are reprofiling the islands and improving the topography of the Scrape, which will enhance breeding habitat for avocets and terns next spring, help us keep areas wet in dry summers, and improve the viewing for visitors.

Work is coming on very nicely on the new fully accessible path to East Hide, but it will still be several weeks before either project is completed.

Over in the reedbed there are regular sightings of several of our most popular species: bitterns, great egrets, marsh harriers, hobbies, kingfishers and bearded tits. Several families of great crested grebes remain on Island Mere, alongside flocks of ducks, several coots, and the lone lingering whooper swan.

There's plenty to spot in the woods and around the visitor centre too. Nuthatches and coal tits are regular on the feeders, as are treecreepers in the trees behind reception. Great spotted and green woodpeckers are often seen, and tawny owls are heard most days from the Canopy Hide area.

Other sightings this week have included migrant hawker, common and ruddy darter dragonflies, willow emerald damselflies, speckled wood and red admiral butterflies, Chinese water deer, weasels, stoats, badgers and slow worms. The red deer rut is getting underway, too, with the first safaris heading out tomorrow. There are still some spaces on safaris, so if you want to book a place please go to www.events.rspb.org.uk/minsmere