Minsmere...

Up early this morning to finish off an article. By 8am I was ensconsed in one of the hides at Minsmere. It was an animated scene, out on the scrapes, with hundreds of black-headed gulls mating, nesting and arguing. It was good to see the avocets once again, and marsh harriers. Best of all were a couple of dozen mediterranean gulls. Their heads are almost black (the heads of black-headed gulls are, confusingly, more of a chocolate colour).

The morning’s birds included barnacle goose, shelduck, gadwall, shoveler, wigeon, teal, bittern, heron, marsh harrier, kestrel, oystercatcher, avocet, turnstone, dunlin, redshank, black-tailed godwit, mediterranean gull, sandwich tern, common tern, stonechat, reed warbler, sedge warbler and cetti’s warbler. In one year cetti’s warbler has gone from being a bird I’d never heard or seen (and never expected to hear or see) to a bird whose explosive song is now very familiar to me. One bird sang so close to me, and so loudly, that it made me jump!…

Minsmere...