Shingle Street, Hollesley Marshes & Hollesley Heath

With winter gradually arriving I thought it would be nice to explore some of the lesser known places of the Suffolk coast. So shying away from the main reserves I chose some more obscure places to visit, in the hope they might turn up something unusual, something not looked for, not the expected, the wildcards. So I chose a small area of South Suffolk, where an assortment of nature reserves provided the opportunity to find some decent bids.

Shingle Street
This place is literally a hamlet built on the edge of the beach. Unlike a large number of  places on the Suffolk Coast that are eroding rapidly, the beaches of Shingle Street are actually increasing, with many new spits forming into the sea as the water deposits shingle from further up the coast. Wild and remote, there are no nearby settlements, Shingle Street is a true frontier place.

Martello Tower in the mud. Lots of these forts litter the Suffolk Coast, created over the years to protect us from French invasion.

 



The place is well known, locally, for its overwintering OWLS, mainly SHORT EARED, that hunt the large areas of rough grassland. I have seen them here before (see an old blog dated 2016) but alas I didn't see any today.
Shingle Street really took the brunt of a strong easterly wind, straight in from Siberia. That really kept everything down and the only birds of note were a flock of twenty COMMON SCOTER on the very choppy sea.

Hollesley Marshes
Having drawn a blank at Shingle Street I went a short way up the coast to Hollesley Marshes. This place can be hit or miss, as a lot of times they drain the scrape here for some reason. Today, thankfully, there was water, and there were a few birds about.

Close shots of birds were hard to come by today

 

This November has seen fairly low numbers of wildfowl as mild weather on the continent has meant they have lingered there and have not been forced over to this country. This may mean that it will be a couple of months before we see decent numbers of ducks over here. The largest number of duck present were of WIGEON, but most of the commoner species were represented, including a few PINTAIL.
Sheep were grazing the grassy edges of the scrape, in preparation for breeding waders of next spring, where lapwing and redshank will nest. A HARE briefly appeared on the path, before clocking me and scarpering off. But all in all it was very quiet really.

Hollesley Heath
As the coastal marshes see an increase in bird numbers over the winter, the heaths see a decline outside of the breeding season. As a result this habitat can be very quiet in winter as birds disperse away. And it was true today of Hollesley, a large area of heath managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, the largest block of Sandlings heath outside of the Minsmere area.

Hollesley Heath is a complex of heath and pine plantations

 



The only birds of note were a STONECHAT and a DARTFORD WARBLER, nothing unusual in that, they are common on the heaths. But what was unusual was the way they were acting. I was once told, when you see a stonechat you will see a Dartford warbler. That was true of today. The two birds were acting together, as if in a way they were best buddies, moving together as they flew over the heather. The stonechat sat atop the heather whilst the Dartford flew around. They were always together. This isn't something learnt, they don't live long enough, but shows some kind of relationship between species that nest in the same habitat, like they complement each other, through something built into them. It was fascinating.

Birdwatching away from the main reserves can be a gamble, sometimes you strike gold, most of the time you don't. What's so good about the Suffolk coast is that there are so many good places to go, so many top notch birding places, that if you're unlucky at one place there will always be another place where there will be birds. You can really spend a life time exploring this area of the country.