Buff-breasted Sandpiper: Minsmere, Suffolk

A day without any commitments is a rare occurrence of late, so we took advantage of the opportunity and headed for Minsmere. Arriving at first light we headed off along North Wall and took the new boardwalk to East Hide. We didn't intend to walk the whole reserve, so set a target of 80 species to see.

Three Spoonbills were seen feeding out on the scrape as soon as we entered the hide. After a more thorough search, we added four species of sandpiper, Common, Green, Curlew, and Wood were all seen at the back edge of East Scrape. Three Spotted Redshank and three Little Stints were then found among a group of Dunlin. A scan through the Black-tailed Godwits revealed a couple of Bar-tailed among them along with Several Knot. Ringed Plover and Grey Plover were also added to the day and wader count.

We moved on to the Public Viewpoint and managed to find the target bird of the day a Buff-breasted Sandpiper. It was well hidden below one of the islands on East Scrape but would have been out of view from the East Hide.

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Start of new boardwalk leading to East Hide

View across the reserve towards Sizewell

Great White Egret

A Peregrine came through a flushed everything on the scrape including the Buff-breasted. Luckily after several flights around the scrape it landed right in front of us. A Great White Egret flew in and joined a Grey Heron and two Little Egrets on one of the islands. 

View of South Scrape from the Public Hide

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

We had hoped to see Dartford Warbler on the reserve, but having failed we decided to take a walk out on the heath, where it proved far more challenging than we had expected. Plenty of Stonechats were seen and eventually, we had views of two distant Dartford Warblers.

A quick check on the day's total came to exactly 80 species! This could have been more if we had walked the whole reserve but we were happy to sit and watch the birds on the scrapes for the majority of the time.