Theberton & Minsmere .......Cracking Day Out !!

3 of 10 European Bee-eaters.

I left home in the early hours of this morning the 10th July and my destination was Theberton in Suffolk and my target was to see the 10 Bee-eaters that had roosted there the night before , i wanted to be on site by 6am as they had left the roost before 7am on the previous two mornings , well i got there by 5.55am and was greeted with the news they had already left the roost !!!!

Record shot of  one of the Bee-eaters.

I could see another group of birders further round from where i was standing and one of them started walking back towards us , when he reached our little group someone asked about the Bee-eaters and the birder said , " oh yeah they are over there but distant" which was a bit of a surprise considering we were told they had already left the roost ??

  Well i soon joined the other group and sure enough i could see 6 Bee-eaters roosting in another tree but they were quite distant.

Digi scoped record shot of two  Bee-eaters.

After a short while all 10 Bee-eaters took to the air and flew towards us , as they got closer you could hear their very distinctive calls , then they were right overhead giving great but brief views and then they were gone . 

I decided to have a couple of hours at Minsmere and headed there , a walk around to the East hide in the company of several Sand Martins was a pleasure.

Young Sand Martin.

I eventually went into the East hide and enjoyed a really great birding session , i had some close views of Avocet including some young birds.

Young Avocet having a stretch.

There were Gulls & waders all over the place , i counted 3 adult Med Gulls among the many Black Headed Gulls , plus i picked out Dunlin & Ringed Plover and i also saw o a cracking Spotted Redshank  !!

Two Spotted Redshank.

I counted 22 Spotted Redshanks in total plus a scattering of Black Tailed Godwits , Oystercatchers , Redshank & Lapwings.

Digi scoped Spotted Redshank.

Whilst scanning through the gull i noticed a cracking adult summer Little Gull which was partially hidden .

Adult summer Little Gull.

Breeding seems to have been very successful for Common Terns on the scrape as there seemed to be young birds everywhere plus plenty of adult birds coming and going with food offerings for there youngsters.

Common Tern.

Fishing.

Adult Common Tern.

Every time I did a scan i seemed to find new birds for my days total , a Ruff appeared from nowhere quickly followed by a young Little Egret.

Ruff.

Young Little Egret.

I decided to head back and have look in the woods and pop into Island mere , on the walk back i first uncounted a female Red Deer.

Female Red Deer.

A bit further along the track a Bittern flew right in front of me before landing distantly in the reed bed . It was fairly quite in the woods other than a single Goldcrest plus a couple of Blackcaps being very vocal , i did see a Treecreeper quite close to the path.

Treecreeper.

I walked past where BBC Springwatch recorded Spineless Simon but i didn't see him ..lol , it was quite windy round by the Island mere hide however i did see a couple of Marsh Harriers and  a distant Bittern flying along the back of the reeds , i decided after such an early start to my day to head home , a cracking days birding , hopefully  another trip to Minsmere next spring is very much on the cards .