Minmsere - 8/1/2020

Minsmere is such an amazing reserve for birds that even within a poor day it can still produce some good sightings. Today wasn't spectacular, indeed it has been one of the quietest days I've had here, yet at Minsmere there is always something to see.
As a twitcher, the list hunting birder, the bird of the day was a GREEN WINGED TEAL, the American counterpart to our teal. It pretty much has the same plumage as our teal, except the yellow horizontal slash on European teals is a vertical one on the green winged. Got that? Then manage having to look through 1500 European teal to find that one bird with a vertical slash. Well someone did, and showed it to me through his telescope. Very nice and convenient indeed. Later on something put all the ducks to flight, jumbling the pack somewhat, meaning someone had to search yet again through 1500 teal to find the bird again.

There was a large congregation of CORMARANTS on the East Scrape, they would fly out to sea to fish

 



As you can see DUCKS were the order of the day, and there were lots of them. 20 PINTAIL were on East Scrape, a decent number as they are fairly  scarce at Minsmere with a further 40 on the South Levels. The South Levels, the area of wet grassland to the south of the scrape, have completely flooded, for the first winter in a while, and were heaving with birds, with hundreds of GADWALL present. There is no formal viewing of this area, so I watched from the beach where even with a telescope the birds were quite distant.

Pair of WIGEON, South Scrape

 

Winter is a poor time for WADERS at Minsmere, where apart from large flocks of LAPWING, there are usually few of these birds about. Six BLACKWIT, three TURNSTONE and two AVOCET, were present, the latter may be returning breeding birds (very early) or nearby winterers getting lost.
The sea was calm, reflecting the mild weather, and there were four GREY SEAL present offshore, someone else had reported a harbour porpoise, which I unfortunately didn't see. There were small numbers of COMMON SCOTER about, an all black sea duck, and there was a RED THROATED DIVER flying low over the sea. The sea is quite poor for birds off Minsmere.

Two KONIK PONIES, grazing the Levels

 

Island Mere, the large lake in the reedbeds, held few wildfowl, although those it did hold were fairly scarce. There was a family party of five WHOOPER SWAN, handily enough resting on the cut area of reed immediately in front of the hide, where there were nine SNIPE. On the water the only birds were a pair of GOOSANDERS, a scarce bid in Suffolk, and my first record for Minsmere. A pair of MARSH HARRIER were quartering over the reedbeds behind.

Adult WHOOPER SWAN, Island Mere

 



Behind South Hide I heard, but didn't see, a small flock of BEARDED TITS, but the reedbeds, and the woodlands, were very quiet, with few small birds about. In fact it was only around the visitors centre, with its bird feeders, that we saw any small birds, with the odd MARSH TIT amongst the commoner tit species.

Sleeping SNIPE, Island Mere

 



A fairly quiet day by Minsmere's standards, the number of species seen was quite low, with a remarkable dearth of smaller birds. I hope that its just me, my recording, or its just the day wasn't right for them, because otherwise we are looking at a massive crash in small birds. Further reductions in our already depleted ecosystems is frankly quite scary.