Six Hours

It's been a long time since I had visited the RSPB's flagship reserve and I wasn't sure if Graham had been there at all (he had), so why not? Graham volunteered to drive (adding a touch of guilt as this was basically my idea but I could relax in the passenger seat!). The drive is about three hours each way and we were to spend about six hours exploring the reserve.
Minsmere is an amazing mix of habitat from scrape, reed bed, meadow, beach, lagoon and woodland and it was a gentle wander through the woodland that began our day. Nothing much to get excited about truthfully so we entered Bittern hide. No bittern at this stage but we were directed towards this hobby, perched silently in a nearby tree, with a commanding view over the reeds.

My absolute favourite spot in the reserve is Island Mere. The mere itself is unremarkable in most ways but I have many good memories from spending time in the hide, mostly involving bittern and marsh harrier, with on one memorable occasion, a bittern rising from the reeds to challenge a passing harrier.
No such drama today but bittern still the star of the show. This one emerged from the reeds behind and to the left of the hide, dropped down at the edge of the mere in front of the hide and then took off across the mere before circling around and sliding back into the reeds at essentially the same point. Admittedly, the second image suggests a headless bittern but does show the amazing plumage pattern on the back and wings. Amazing bird and by the standards of this exceptionally secretive species, amazing views.
The other factor with bittern is that boom. The call (song?) ranged out across the reed bed at odd intervals throughout our stay on the reserve, tempting us back to Island Mere just on the off chance that we might get another view. We didn't get that view of course and can think ourselves fortunate to claim the quality views we had.

Marsh harriers were visible all day, and whilst this view is somewhat distant, the sheer beauty of male marsh harriers is always worth recording.

Making our way back through the visitor centre towards the scrape, we did have a chat with the centre staff and were told about stone curlew, a bird I would never have associated with Minsmere when I first came here some thirty years ago and a bird Graham had never seen. We quickly corrected that and had good if distant views of one of the stranger looking birds in the wader community. The beach produced nothing and we settled down to lunch from East Hide, looking out over a wader scrape dominated by black headed gulls (were there this many gulls when I first came here?). In amongst the gulls, there were a number of mediterranean gull, a few avocet (have the gulls driven these out?) and a few of common tern such as this one.

Checking the scrape from the west side, we added redshank (one), grey plover (one), little tern (two and very nice too!), lapwing and oystercatcher (one).
Ultimately, we couldn't resist the lure of Island Mere and we strolled back to see if we could see the illusive bittern once more. As it turned out, we couldn't, but we did have up to four hobby in the air at one point and that is no bad way to end a day at Minsmere.

That will be a Redstart then!

Today has something of a redstart theme. The following images are, apart from a couple of afterthoughts at the end, all redstart. Before I get to those, I learnt something new about redstarts today (although I dare say it's in the guides), they mimic. That is to say, they mix into there own actually fairly short, unremarkable little song, snatches of song from other species. The particular bird I was listening to at Thursley this morning inserted a very convincing slice of willow warbler with a little chiffchaff, both species present elsewhere around Thursely.
Thursely itself was, as usual, replete with its wonderful core species, dartford warbler, tree pipit, woodlark, skylark, stonechat and the wonderful sound and indeed sight of curlew.

It was also replete with proper photographers. By proper, I mean carrying lenses that would look ok next to the Hubble telescope with assorted accompanying equipment that needed a trolley to take it all. Dragging that thing through the sandy soils of Thursley can't have been much fun so I hope they got the shot!

All of which brings me back to those redstarts.

That last image is not, I believe, showing an active nest, so much as a prospecting male and certainly the area I took this in looks excellent for possible redstart nest sites

Also in the area was a flock of maybe twenty redpoll, difficult to photograph and so it proved. The only image I would describe as just about acceptable being this one. More learning however; thought I was hearing long tailed tit (the dry rattling call), next time, I will perhaps identify the call more quickly.

I managed to dodge a couple of cantering horses (I could say they were galloping but my knowledge of horses gearing ratios is a bit suspect), the riders were very polite it must be said and using that route did bring me to another redstart, followed by coffee (no cake, big mistake)..

A couple of images from last week at Papercourt to finish off. Skylark proving how difficult they are to photograph and a pretty high red kite, nice tail shape 'tho.