Red Footed Falcon in Suffolk plus some surprises

I am a little bit behind with news of my recent birding trips on this blog so apologises for that, hopefully i will soon be back up to date.

 Starting with a planned trip to Minsmere on the 4th May  but with a couple of diversions on route.                                         


                                                             Abberton Reservoir in Essex

News of the 5 Adult summer White winged Black Terns reached me and it was to good to resist and so that was the 1st diversion, distant but good scope views were obtained of these stunning Terns , sadly to far for photos but what a great start to the day (Thanks RR for info). Then onto Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk.


                                                                Rendlesham Forest Suffolk

                                                                    

♂ Red Footed Falcon.

Having now arrived at  Rendlesham Forest to hopefully see the male Red footed Falcon ,  we were not disappointed , Wow what a bird, this was my 10th RFF in the UK and i have had some great views of this species but this one topped the lot !!!

Coming into land.

Digi scoped photo.

Red Footed Falcon.

Sadly my photos don't do this bird justice (the light was awful) , but the views were great as it constantly swooped down to catch bugs to eat showing off its glorious red under parts.

Minsmere Rspb reserve.

Sand Martin.

We stopped and had a look over the heath on route to the reserve and were rewarded with flight views of Woodlark.

Once on the reserve we headed straight for Island Mere hide to have lunch , the hide was pretty busy but good views of Sand Martin & Swallows were had, you could just about hear the Savi's Warbler 'Reeling' in the distance (the hide was sadly just to noisy) but eventually i managed to get the Savi's Warbler in my scope and it was fantastic to watch it 'Reeling' .

Sedge Warbler.

From Island Mere hide we headed to the scrape and had great views of Sedge Warbler on route, the scrape was very busy with 100's of Black headed Gulls , the keen eyed could also pick out several Mediterranean Gulls.

Adult Black Tern.

Moving around the scrape several Common & Sandwich Terns were seen and also on one of the islands a stunning adult Summer Black Tern showed really well, i was also very pleased to see a single Little Tern.

There was a clear lack of waders with only a single Bar tailed Godwit , 3 Knot & 1 Turnstone seen , the usual large numbers of Avocet were present plus Oystercatcher & Redshank in much smaller numbers.

Kittiwake.

Moving round to the public hide we saw pretty much the same variety of birds we had already seen but added some really close views of Kittiwake.

The last hide we visited gave us the reward of a 1st summer Caspian Gull which was a welcome addition to a really great days birding.

Cute Rabbit.