Lakenheath RSPB

I've recently been bemoaning my lack of birding opportunities or adventure but with Robert wanting to visit Lakenheath, yesterday gave me an opportunity for a decent morning out with him and the Jims. We left home early and arrived at Lakenheath around 6am. Lakenheath is one of those great reserves that has dawn-til-dusk access and allows you to enjoy the dawn chorus fully and so we started at the washland view point where we found Garganey, Ruff, Avocet, Black-tailed Godwits and more but the noise was the most impressive thing as all around us we could hear Sedge/Reed/Cetti's Warblers, Reed Buntings, Wren, Robin, Blackbird and Common Whitethroats all singing as if their lives depended on it.

The walk up the river bank gave nice views of several of the above singers and a Grasshopper Warbler was heard very distantly reeling. The Greylags and Egyptian Geese have young with the latter almost fully grown. Cuckoos were calling and often seen perched up or in flight and our first of many Marsh Harrier was seen as we walked past New Fen.

We arrived at Joist Fen and sat to enjoy the view for a couple of hours. Single Cranes were seen on five occasions flying across the reed bed and dropping into the surrounding fields. These are thought to be wondering birds not the birds breeding on site. Marsh Harrier continued to show and we had two Bittern in flight along with several fast flight views of the local Kingfisher. The view from Joist Fen has changed a bit with the reeds being thinned to create a scrape which held large numbers of Snipe. We added House Martin to the year list but general numbers of hirundines was low and with the cool grey day no Hobbies had shown on this visit. A single Common Tern flew up the river.

Distant Common Crane feeding out on the farmland across the river

Reed Bunting

Sedge Warbler

We slowly made our way back visiting the hide and New Fen on our way. At the hide we had brief distant views of some Bearded Tits but it was very quiet and slow viewing with the entertainment coming first from a Coot feeding its single chick then a fight between four Coot and finally and interaction between Coot and Great-crested Grebe.

Coots

Coots

Coots

Coots

Great crested Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

This Grebe popped up next to the Coot giving it quite a fright

At New Fen we had another encounter with a wondering Crane that was joined in the air by our third Bittern of the day.  

A brief visit to Cavenham before leaving the Brecks was disappointingly quiet and we failed to find a single Stone Curlew. 

Skylark

Stonechat

A day list of 80 species was reached with just the one year tick being House Martins.

Year list now 203