Newbourne Springs & Hemley 23/6/2020

Today I took the road less travelled, exploring areas to the east of Ipswich. I chose the Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve at Newbourne Springs and nearby Hemley, a little hamlet near the Deben estuary. The day was one of high summer, so it was sweltering and extremely hot, and as a result I didn't  really see much in the end. However despite this it was an enjoyable day out, getting to see some overlooked places (mainly by me) and exploring new areas of the countryside.

Newbourne Springs

A wet wooded valley with some fen meadows, Newbourne Springs is a nice little Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve. Situated in the same named village I decided to visit this place first. 

 Juvenile LONG TAILED TIT

The woodland, which makes up most of the reserve, was all overgrown, with thick brambles growing under tall trees, where dappled sun light would steal through the canopy. In the middle of the valley the woodland was nice and wet, a habitat that is quite rare in our over tidy countryside.
The overgrown woodland, was a boon to WARBLERS, and were full of BLACKCAPS, plus a few GARDEN WARBLERS, and WHITETHROATS in the more open areas where the reserve opened to farmland. I also saw a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and a BUZZARD flew over high above.
But in the main it was very quiet.

The road to Waldringfield Heath
I got lost driving to Hemley and ended up heading north to Waldringfield. Strangely enough this led to good circumstances. In the middle of this single track road a YELLOW WAGTAIL was feeding one of its young on the tarmac. Now this is one of those birds that was once common, but has unfortunately vanished from a lot of the countryside. They are birds of wet grassland that has suffered when that land became drained. Seeing them is quite hard, even in a county such as Suffolk, which is less intensively farmed and has a lot of their favourite habitat remaining.
The birds I saw today seemed to be nesting in a potato field, (ok forget what I said about them using wet grassland, that's whats so good of birds they don't do what the books say)

Hemley

A couple of miles away from Newbourne is Hemley, a hamlet close to the Deben estuary.

A SWALLOW on wire. Hemley had a staggering amount of HIRUNDINES and SWIFTS

The most noticeable thing about Hemley was the sheer numbers of HIRUNDINES and SWIFTS in the built up areas. HOUSE MARTINS swooshed through the air flying in and out of their nests, muddy constructions under the eaves of the old houses. One house had five nests plastered under the roof whilst another had six, and they were full of life. This is what a lot of towns and cities would have looked like before those houses were modified and air pollution killed the insects the birds fed on. Seeing all these birds flying around really took me back in time, to a less tidy natural world and all this from just ten houses.

 A pair of COMMON TERN - will they nest here this year?

From the hamlet I walked to the river wall. The footpath crossed some beautiful area of country, lots of hedgerows, scrub with low lying cattle grazed meadows near the estuary. Like the hamlet, this is a landscape that felt like I was moving back in time to a less intensively farmed time.
As I approached the river I could tell this was a quiet stretch of the river, and it felt like not many people visited here. The tide was high on the river, but there were still some mud showing. The end of  June is probably the worst time of year to visit an estuary, as all the birds associated with this habitat are off on their breeding grounds. As it was there were just a few loafing GULLS about.
Some LAPWING were about, they nest early and are one of the earliest returning WADERS, and there were some OYSTERCATCHERS which nest on the estuary. Further down the river there were a pair of COMMON TERNS mating, and its possible they might nest on this area of dried mud above the water line.
Also about were a pair of SHELDUCK which had a staggering fourteen ducklings with them, quite the brood to look after. There was another pair further up the river, but I couldn't see how many young they had.

A view of the Deben 

Not really a remarkable day, but an enjoyable one non the less. Its good to visit these out of the way places, and seeing something unexpected merely adds to the value. I am so lucky with Suffolk having so much beautiful countryside to explore and I don't just mean the big reserves like Minsmere. There are acres of countryside out there, with a lot harbouring birds that are overlooked because they are in underwatched areas of the country. So dear reader, look on a map, find an area of countryside, find a route and start birding, I bet you will be rewarded.