Winter woodland wildlife

More often than not, when talking about what can be seen at Minsmere, we focus on our wetland wildlife, but today I'll focus initially on the woodland. On a damp, dreary day, with poor visibility over the Scrape and reedbeds, our guides spotted an superb array of wildlife in the woodland scrub areas of the reserve.

You don't have to walk far to spot some interesting woodland wildlife, with marsh tits and coal tits around the visitor centre feeders, siskins feeding in alders near the pond, lesser redpolls and goldfinches joining the tit flocks in North Bushes, and a pair of bullfinches in the North Bushes.

Male bullfinch by John Bridges (rspb-images.com)

Heading through South Belt, flocks of long-tailed tits and goldcrests were prominent, several jays  were seen, and a  couple of very tame muntjacs lingered near the path. At least three green woodpeckers and two mistle thrushes emerged from the trees to feed on Whin Hill, while both song thrush and fieldfare were near Scotts Hall.

One of our volunteers walked around the Woodland Trail this morning, a part of the reserve that is often neglected by visitors in winter when the insects are hibernating and the flowers are dormant, and he was duly rewarded with sightings of great spotted woodpecker, marsh tit and at least 24 goldcrests.

Goldcrest by Jon Evans

The volunteers watching the Scrape were not to be outdone though as they spotted a pair of pintails among the hundreds of ducks, and a good variety of waders for the time of year - one unseasonal avocet, 24 snipe, 17 dunlins, 31 black-tailed godwits, two redshanks, two turnstones and about 1000 lapwings. The pick of the birds around the Scrape, for those lucky enough to see it, was a handsome male hen harrier, seen flying south mid morning and north again about four hours later. Other raptors today included several sparrowhawks, at least six marsh harriers and a peregrine.

For those who devoted the day to watching the reedbed there was plenty to see two: at least four different otters at Bittern Hide and three at Island Mere; regular bitterns and bearded tits at both Island Mere and Bittern Hides; water rail, kingfisher, little grebe and four Bewick's swans at Island Mere. Late in the day another flock of 17 Bewick's swans flew past Bittern Hide and settled on Island Mere, calling as they went.

Bewick's swans by Jon Evans

The murky weathe rput paid to any decent starling murmurations tonight though. They've been quite mobile recently, and appeared to have moved to the Island Mere/Eastbridge end of the reedbed, but tonight several thousand headed towards North Marsh at dusk, albeit without putting on much of a show. If we get some clearer evenings we hope they'll put on a show again this week, but exactly where is anyone's guess.