Havergate Island - 20/8/2018

I've been trying to diversify my bird watching destinations, because I feel the best way to really appreciate birds is to travel to those places off the beaten track. Yes, Minsmere is great, there is always something good to see there, but there is just something exciting about not really knowing what you might see, a shot in the dark so to say that you would get from the unknown.
So to Havergate Island, Suffolk's  least accessible nature reserve (well, tying with Orfordness maybe). With Havergate because it is so inaccessible you don't have any idea about what's about. You have no idea about anything because people can only go there once a month, and not at all in the breeding season. No news comes out of there.
However the local RSPB were doing guided tours all weekend long, where people were able to spend a couple of hours on Havergate with a local birdwatcher.

 

I  know Havergate quite well because despite visiting a few times as a birder I also did volunteer work there. In the late winter/early Spring of 2011 I helped build a screen to a hide to help stop disturbance. However it proved futile as the storm surge of 2013 washed it all away as it did a lot of the island's infrastructure. But when I was there I saw SHORT-EARED OWLS, and a SMEW. It was pretty good.
Anyway back to today's trip. We caught the October Storm from Orford Quay and within fifteen minutes were at the jetty on the island. This is my first visit in five years, and my first since the storm surge so I wasn't sure what I would be seeing.
To be honest it wasn't too much different. The hides were rebuilt and put in different positions, but it didn't really change what we could see. The island is made up of a series of scrapes, surrounded by a sea wall, pools of shallow water with shingle islands and mud. The island is long and thin and the path runs along its spine, north to south.

With scrapes at this time of year the focus is on WADERS. Havergate had a fair number, but it was still fairly quiet. With water levels dropping with the receding tide on the river, WADERS were flying away from the island to feed on the river's mud.
All the usual suspects were around with roosting GODWITS, DUNLIN, REDSHANK OYSTERCATCHER and LAPWING present on all the scrapes. Single numbers of RINGED PLOVERS were dotted about, with the same number of CURLEW, although they are completely different in apppearance. The different scrapes held different number of birds and also different species, all differing in shape, size and colour.
I forget the names of the different lagoons, I know a stupid mistake for a blogger to make, but shoot me. On one scrape was a COMMON SANDPIPER, whilst on another were two KNOT and some TURNSTONE.

We walked down to where the residential area used to be and had coffee and some cake. We then headed back to the jetty and on the way saw six WHIMBREL fly over calling with their seven note trill. We boarded the boat and sailed back to Orford. On the way we saw two SANDWICH TERNS fishing in the river.
To be honest, bird-wise it wasn't great. There wasn't much there, the reserve was very quiet which may have been influenced by the tides of the river. But its been a long time since I have been here, and it is always good to  keep up with what's going on in the bird world. Its a fascinating place - for a birder, there's nothing else to  do here for normal people - in a fascinating area of the country. And as I said in the beginning its always good to explore different places, even if they end up being not that great.