Fentastic!

We were fortunate, whilst on a trip to RSPB Minsmere on the Suffolk coast, to meet up with an old friend and keen birder, JD. The nature reserve was a couple of hours' drive away, but so very worth it (despite the Cambridge rush hour, tailbacks from roadworks and getting lost a mile short of our destination).

JD sent us very detailed instructions of where to meet up, which I expertly confused in that bit of my brain where I hold my map memory. Long story short, whilst pootling slowly along the wrong narrow lane with the car windows open, we scored a drive-by Nightingale in song. Eventually, we found the correct spot with even more detailed instructions... "park by the female Ring Ouzel, walk up the track to the male Redstart and look through my scope at the pair of Stone Curlews". This latter species is part of a family which is also known by the name of Thick-knees, which I'm sure in today's enlightened times would be considered body shaming.

We'd barely begun the nature watching and Megan already had two lifers!

Next stop was the Bittern Hide, which looks out over a reed bed (Yay!) towards a nuclear power station (Boo!) and offers the possibilities of Bittern, Marsh Tit and Marsh Harrier (Yay!).

A distant Bittern

Marsh Harrier(s)

En route to the Island Mere Hide, the path took us down to the level of the Level, an immersive experience just short of immersion. We carried on along a boardwalk, the sky above us filled with Swallows and Sand Martins, with several more Marsh Harriers quartering just above the height of the reeds. The calls of Water Rail, Cetti's Warbler and Little Grebe rang out from the dense vegetation, their secretive owners unseen amongst the stems. I think it was at this point that we heard our first Cuckoo of the year, too.

Lunch was eaten al fresco, as JD sagely commented that staring at the sky would reveal more species than sitting in the restaurant. It did (Stock Dove).

We began the afternoon by heading seawards along the embankment known as the North Wall, then turning south at the back of the dunes and following a new boardwalk to the East Hide. Before subjecting ourselves to the clamour of the East Scrape, we paused for a moment's reflection by a drainage channel. A Little Egret was hunting for fish and minding its own business, right up to the point where a Grey Heron gate-crashed its party whilst trying to escape the attentions of a mobbing Black-headed Gull. How rude.

Reverie broken, we wandered into the hide to be struck by a wall of noise from a multitude of ducks, geese and waders. It was a bit of a theme during the week that most large water bodies would hold a Black-headed Gull colony and Minsmere was no exception. JD had noticed that the previous day's sightings included a few Mediterranean Gulls, a species I had never seen, so he set about sifting through the hundreds (thousands?) of gulls for the black-headed ones which weren't Black-headed. His scope scanned slowly one way and then another for minutes at a time, as he patiently and pains-takingly checked each bird. Just at the moment when he finally declared "Aha! There's three of them!" a Marsh Harrier flew over and all the gulls and waders took to the air in alarm. The noise level actually went up, something that I didn't think was possible, as birds whirled around in a melee of panic (waders) and indignation (gulls). With the raptor gone, calm was eventually restored, although whilst all the birds were back on the ground, they weren't necessarily in the same place. As JD's scope resumed its slow scanning of the scene, you could almost sense an eyeroll from an inanimate piece of optical equipment. Fortunately for me, JD found the Med Gulls again, so I was able to see the subtle differences in plumage between the two species. I would never have managed this with a pair of binoculars, so my grateful thanks to JD!

Following the path around the whole scrape, we stopped to marvel at the sound of a Bittern booming, when I heard another noise. I just had time to begin to ask "Is that a Bea-..." when JD exclaimed "Bearded Tit!" This would be another lifer for Megan, so we all stared intently at the patch of reed bed from where the twangy, buzzy sound had emanated. After what felt like an age, Megan spotted the wee bird, a resplendent male, flitting across a stretch of open water between clumps of reeds. Now Megan was quite buzzy!

We didn't manage to find Dartford Warblers on Dunwich Heath, but it wasn't for lack of looking. By any measure, it had been a fantastic day's birding, so as a token of our gratitude, we treated JD to a meal at the Eel's Foot Inn in Eastbridge.

For our final day in Cambridgeshire, we stayed local to the cottage, visiting the National Trust's Wicken Fen reserve, then having a long lunch at Five Miles From Anywhere pub in Upware.

Peace and Tranquility

Wandering along the many boardwalks around the reserve, there were lots of fragments of dried moss clinging to the toe rail...

although some of them weren't moss!

Megan had one more ID conundrum to consider. Could she possibly add this (whatever it was) to her life list?