I was eleven years old when I first visited the hallowed grounds of Minsmere. I was on a caravan trip with my family, to Suffolk, staying at the site just out of Dunwich Heath, on the borders of Minsmere. I came from the inland of the country, near Tring Reservoirs and had never bird watched on the coast.
Back then Minsmere had a different visitors centre, and car park where the pond and sand martin colony are now. The first experience was really reaching the hide that overlooked the scrape. I remember opening up the flaps to the hide window and looking out upon the scrape to see my first avocet. I nonchalantly told my brother 'there's an avocet', hoping not to sound to other people in the hide that this was important, whilst secretly inside my heart was beating fast - this was the most iconic birds in this country and this is the first one I've ever seen. Well there wasn't just one, there were hundreds.
This distinctive and totally original bird, beautiful in its extremes with its plumage of white and black, with it beak bent up at the end, of its habitat, of what is really a large pond with islands. This moment was my introduction to being a full birdwatcher.
I have been to Minsmere many times since, so many that most of my memories have become embedded in the landscape, and I can revisit them any time I return to Minsmere. I also have seen many avocets, but that is probably still the best moment that exists in my memory, the very first time. There were other things that have changed since then in bird watching - the waxing and waning of different bird populations, and also my own skills as a birdwatcher, but I can still revisit the place it all began.
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