Went to Westleton Heath today to look for the deer rut and to twitch two shrikes that were present. These two were a GREAT GREY SHRIKE and a RED-BACKED SHRIKE. They were very elusive, so I heard, and indeed they weren't there when I turned up. One group had 2 sightings in 4 hours of the RED-BACKED so I didn't bother hanging around too long. Even the deer rut, a feature of the Minsmere area in October, when red deer stags come to compete for the hinds, seemed to be over.
So I ended up walking the short road to Minsmere.
East Hide looking across the scrape
Now Minsmere is a great place to go bird watching, in my opinion the best, but occasionally, occasionally mind, it can be a bit samey and that was what it was like today. I only had a couple of hours to look around which in bird watching terms in a place the size of Minsmere, it is a very short time indeed. It felt like a sprint going round.There were the usual lazy ducks, mainly TEAL, with smaller numbers of SHOVELLER and GADWALL and 3 PINTAIL were also present.
This picture of a TEAL got me 30 likes on Facebook. Well over a thousand were present at Minsmere
Waders feeing on the last bits of mud as water levels rise for the winter included 3 SPOTSHANK, 1 GREENSHANK and 1 RUFF.
CETTI'S WARBLERS were beginning to sing and there was a STONECHAT and a small SISKIN and REDPOLL flock by West Hide.
It was an ok day, but when you've been bird watching as much as I have, it all feels bit same old. But hey its not a hard life and I'm very lucky such places as these exist so I can't complain.
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