Autumn is gearing up, and there's an air of excitement as new and rare birds are being reported from the main reserves along the Suffolk Coast. At the moment the return migration is dominated by the movement of WADERS, as they take the long, relaxed route back to their wintering grounds.
Minsmere is always good for migrant waders, a welcome pit stop for tired birds travelling across the land. The Scrape, a world famous habitat of shallow water and islands, is particularly good for attracting them. Usually as the year reaches August the shallow water dries out and lots of fabulous mud is exposed, great feeding refuges for waders. However with the intense rains over the summer water levels remain high and therefore there is little mud to attract this family of birds. Despite all this a decent assortment were about and I saw fifteen species of this type of bird. The birds were constantly on the move, flocks flying in and out, seeming to ride in front of the brief rain squalls which drenched the land. Luckily I was able to dodge this weather and was able to ride out the fierce rain storms in the hides.
This time of year is always good for picking up rarities, those birds that have got lost on their journey. There were a couple today, a WHITE RUMPED-SANDPIPER and a PECTORAL SANDPIPER. The white rump was the rarest and took a bit more finding as it was hidden for a while, it eventually appeared with a small flock of DUNLIN. From that flock of little waders I was able to tell the white rump apart, with its white eye stripe, and its well named white rump when it flew off to another part of the Scrape. Its a bird that originated from America and may have been blown here by some storm. Also from America, another bird that made its way across the pond and is now destined to wander the marshes of Europe, is the PEC SAND. This bird was much easier to find, hanging around an island in front of East Hide. Neither of the two birds were particularly impressive, mainly little brown jobs (LBJs), the kind of birds people rib twitchers over.
At this time of year one species I always like to see is the SPOTTED REDSHANK, a bird that peaks earlier in the Autumn period. Its a more refined version of our commoner redshank, much more elegantly shaped, and with a cleaner colour, and is found only on migration. Today there was a decent number of 25 present, with 15 on East Scrape and 10 on South Scrape. Most have now moulted out of their jet back summer plumage, although one was still nattily attired. Ruff were also about with 7 on East Scrape and 1 on South Scrape, although like the spotshanks they had now moulted out of their summer plumage and now just had browny upperparts with a white underneath, a bit like a big redshank.
Lots of AVOCET were still about, and on West Scrape hundreds of GODWIT. The usual August ensemble cast of waders were present, this included small numbers of COMMON SAND, GREEN SAND, TRUNSTONE and RINGED PLOVER, with single SNIPE and GREENSHANK, all dispersed around the Scrape.
Outside of waders August can be fairly quiet. The breeding season has pretty much finished, and the excessively hot weather means a lot of birds were keeping themselves undercover during the warmer hours of the day. Some of the COMMON TERNS were still nesting, with a few older chicks about, big balls of brown fluff, although most had fledged. Of the hundreds of SANDWICH TERNS present over the Summer, all had left as had all the LITTLE TERNS. All the GULLS had left as well.
There were some further highlights from the reserve. As soon as I got into North Hide, and literally the first bird I saw at Minsmere today was a BITTERN flying across right in front of me. I seldom see this brown reedbed heron in August, and never from the North Hide, what a sighting it made. Over the Konik Fields, a HOBBY was in flight, although the other specialist breeding raptor, the MARSH HARRIERS, were about only in small numbers.
Just outside the reserve, but still visible from the beach, the sea was still and turquoise and out on this blue expanse several GANNETS were about, a bird that is not so common off the Suffolk coast. There were also lots of TERNS flying down the coast migrant birds on the move as they head south from their northern breeding colonies.
DUCK numbers were low on the Scrape, but on Island Mere, a large lake in the vast reedbeds, there was a nice number of moulting wildfowl. Over 150 GADWALL were present, with 20 SWANS and 10 GREAT CRESTED GREBES, as well as one still nesting, grebes as a species have a long breeding period. The strangest thing about Island Mere Hide was there was no people in there. Usually its a busy hide as people search for the reedbed specialties that can be seen from here. This lack of people was a first for me and maybe one of the strangest sightings of the day.
A pretty solid showing for the Grand Old Reserve, with, in the end, around 65 species seen, a good total, although they were mostly the common fodder, but I had some unusual sightings as well. It was a good showing for August which can be a tricky time, too hot, or no birds, and as usual the wading birds were the stars. It wont be long until wading bird migration will hit its peak, usually in a couple of weeks, with smaller song birds starting to move a bit later. Hopefully exciting times await. As always, good birding to you all.
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