Hollesley Marshes; Hollesley Heath - 13/3/2020

Early March can be a quiet time to look for birds. The breeding season hasn't quite begun, and winter has run its course. Its a gamble going anywhere, as no place will be at its best. I decided on a whim to concentrate on the Hollesley area, its marshes and its heaths, hoping a medley of habitats would produce birds. However it proved to be the opposite and I didn't see much to be honest.

Hollesley Marshes
The standout birds on the reserve was the large flock of WHITE FRONTED GEESE, over a hundred strong. They were feeding on the grassland behind the scrape before being disturbed and flying on to the scrape. This is a good size flock for the reserve and the time of year, by March most birds would have left, and the marshes are proving to be a reliable place to find them.

View across the scrape to the prison beyond

The scrape still had decent numbers of DUCK present, the majority being WIGEON, but also with a few PINTAIL among the commoner birds. Breeding WADERS have started to turn up, with plenty of LAPWING on territory on the grassy areas the birds tumbling around in the air as they protect their area of land. REDSHANK and OYSTERCATCHERS had all arrived and there were 18 AVOCETS about.
The scrape at Hollesley is different to the one at Minsmere. The scrape here is like a flooded area amongst grassland, whilst the one at Minsmere is made up of many different habitats attracting a lot more birds than here at Hollesley
Walking up to the river wall, and scouting around, there were six GREY SEALS resting on the other side of the river, on the shingle banks of Orford Ness.

 GREY SEALS resting on Orford Ness on the other side of the river

 

Hollesley Heath
After the marshes I played a visit to the heaths. I had a nice long walk through the Hollesley Heath area, through the vast landscape of differing habitats. It was nice to just explore the area, as it is vast, and there are undeniably many birds, its just takes a lot more searching.

 

 

Its the largest block of heath outside the Minsmere area, where large patches of heath jigsaw with areas of farmland and forest. The heath I walked through today was Lower Hollesley Common, a large block of heather.
A lot of the land consists of confier plantations, along with birch woods, and scattered veteran pines. The farmland was made up of cabbages and turf, bright green grass used for gardens and football pitches. It seems a trifle unnecessary to grow turf, its not food, its not nature. To anyone saying farmers grow our food, just think of those fields of turf, intensively grown crops on land that should at least be given over to nature or something.There are no hedgerows in this area, rather there are pine belts, rows of trees that act as shelter, to stop the sandy soil from being blown away.

Unfortunately there weren't many birds about, not the heathland specialists I was looking for. The best sighting was of a herd of DEER. A group of 28 FALLOW DEER on Lower Hollelsey Common, were resting under the shelter of a large, lone pine tree. As we approached the deer became nervous and got up. The herd split in two, one going one side one going another. That meant one of the group came in our direction, stopped went back, undecided, before heading back in our direction again, but this time sprinting fast to outrun us, eventually disappearing into the woods. Its always good to get view of these animals, such a large landscape of here, of many different habitats can support large numbers of creatures. Its when the land is given over to monoculture in intensively farmed areas that wildlife is at a minimum.

 

 

I wasn't too disappointed with the day as I wasn't expecting much to be honest. I don't think any place would have produced any good bird sightings at this time of the year. Sometimes its just good to distance myself from the twitching side of birdwatching and just explore the countryside, with no specific aim.