Minsmere, Roseate Terns

Brian had an unexpected free day today, so we headed to Minsmere this morning.

On the walk out we heard several Bearded Tits pinging and managed good views of two birds as they climbed the reeds near a small pond. We took the new boardwalk to East Hide and began scanning East Scrape. The scrape was quieter than normal with very few species of waders present. The only waders found were Ringed Plovers, lapwing, Avocet, and Redshank. Sandwich Terns were present in good numbers along with much smaller numbers of Kittiwake. There was no sign of the previous day's Roseate Tern. Brian picked out a Common Tern with a black bill, which had us briefly thinking of the reported Eastern Common Tern, but this was dismissed and recorded as a Common Tern.

We left East Hide and walked along the beach to the public hide where we found the two reported Roseate Terns among masses of Sandwich Terns of the furthest bund to the south of us. The whole flock was soon flushed, and when they all settled back down again the Roseate Terns were refound on a small narrow spit, allowing for some great scope views. A Little Tern was also found, giving us both, another addition to the year list. A flock of Black-tailed Godwits flew in from behind Wildlife Lookout and settled down on south scrape.

Roseate Terns

 

Roseate, Little, Sandwich, and Common Terns

Part of South Scrape from the Public Hide

So far this year I had not seen a Hobby. Although I had been to some ideal locations and habitats in previous weeks. This changed when I scanned the large area of reedbeds from the Wildlife Lookout Hide. On top of a small bush in the middle of the reedbed was a Hobby.

We decided to spend the last part of the morning scanning the reedbed from the Bittern Hide and were rewarded with sightings of three Bitterns, several Marsh Harriers, and numerous Hobby flybys.

An excellent morning's birding, finishing with 78 species and picking up 3 additions to the year list.