With another unexpected free day I arranged to take Dad and Jim to Minsmere today. We arrived at 7am and walked down towards the sea hearing a couple of Nightingale on the way. Bearded Tits flew across the reeds but dropped in quick on the back of a cold wind. At the Boardwalk we heard a Grasshopper Warbler reeling and Jim got us focused on a distant Cuckoo too for our first year tick. At East hide we picked out our first Sandwich Terns of the year along with a drake Garganey, 2 Greenshank, 3 Ringed Plover and a couple of Turnstone. Med Gulls were present along with Blackwits, Dunlin, Knot and Oystercatchers.
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| Barnacle Geese |
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| Black-tailed Godwit |
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| Surf Scoter (last bird on the right) |
From the public hide we found a couple of Pintail and more Sandwich Tern and Med Gulls. The towers at sea held good numbers of Kittiwake and we found a few Whitethroat and Stonechat at the sluice bushes. A Yellow Wagtail in the pony field before a flyover Bittern and several Marsh Harriers. Buzzards and Sparrowhawks were next along with Kingfisher to wrap up our visit.
On Dunwich Heath we found three Dartford Warblers and a large group of Sand Martins with the odd Swallow and we then drove the six miles round to Walberswick and walked out along the beach to find the Scoter flock which contained a single Surf Scoter to give me not just a year tick but a Suffolk life tick too moving the Suffolk list to 278 and the year list to 200.
Our day total was 94 which for April is a decent haul.
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