Weekend Away To Minsmere - February 2019

The Birdwatching Group enjoyed a very successful weekend away to East Anglia over 22-24th February. You can read the official trip report in the Trip Report section. Here are a few more of my photos from the trip.

[click on a photo for a larger view]

Friday on the way down was spent at the RSPB's Frodsham Marsh reserve in Lincolnshire.

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There were quite a few Skylarks about (above), either feeding on the ground or heard singing in the sky.

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A large number of Brent Geese were present on the pools. I have captured just a small fraction of the flock in the photo above.

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A handsome male Wigeon. There were a lot grazing around the reserve.

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There was a truly enormous flock of Golden Plover on the reserve, certainly many hundreds. My telephoto lens could only capture a small part of the total flock. Note the pair of Pintails in the foreground and Shelduck in the background of the first photo and Shovelers in the background in the second photo.

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Little Egrets were present, fishing in the pools. In the second photo you can see one of its yellow feet that it waggles in the water to disturb the small fish.

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Back to the Golden Plover. They were very skittish and would take to the air with the least provocation. I looked hard to see if it was caused by a bird of prey flying over but I never could see one.

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A nice male Goldeneye. There was a small number of both males and females present.

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Mute Swans trying to take off. They ran across the surface struggling to get airborne but gave up and glided to a halt again. They managed to move about 100 yards across the lake.

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There was a family of Bewick's Swans present on the lake, 2 adults and about 4 grey juveniles. Unfortunately they stayed well over on the far side of the lake so I couldn't get a very good photo. There is a Pochard and some Wigeon out of focus in the foreground.

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And to complete the trio of swan species, Whooper Swans were also present. We had passed a large flock on the fields down the road from the reserve. In the late afternoon some of them were moving up to the lake for roosting.

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As well as the Brent Geese mentioned previously there were also a lot of Greylag Geese, a few Canada Geese, and just these 3 Barnacle Geese.

Saturday was Minsmere day. However before arriving at the reserve we stopped off at Westleton Heath just to the north to look for heathland specialities.

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One target was Woodlark. We initially saw several birds at a distance but eventually managed to get a closer view of this bird singing at the top of a tree.

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Our other target on the heath was Dartford Warbler. Several birds were about and were seen perched either on the gorse bushes or the heather.

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Once at Minsmere several of the group were lucky to see an Adder or two basking in the sunshine. However they were at the bottom of a hedge quite well hidden by the undergrowth such that only a small part of the body could be seen. I personally never saw a head.

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The following weekend I went down to the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and there I had a much better view of an Adder which I'd like to share with you now. This snake was more in the open and more mobile as it moved along the bank.

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The RSPB keep a small herd of Konik ponies from Poland on the reserve to help manage the environment for the breeding waders. They spent most of the time hidden in the reedbed to the north of the Scrapes but I did eventually get a photo of one when it emerged.

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A male Teal feeding on the West Scrape.

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I got a very nice close-up of this Little Egret, also feeding on the West Scrape.

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A photo of the main reedbed from the Bittern Hide. Some members managed to see a Bittern but unfortunately I missed out.

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However I did get this photo of a Long-tailed Tit that flew into the tree in front of the Bittern Hide.

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Another speciality of the reedbed is the Marsh Harriers and we were not disappointed. Above is a photo of a female.

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And also a couple of photos of a male, more colourful and with more grey on the wings.

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As we were heading back to the coach for departure some members were lucky to see this Muntjac on the bank behind the Visitor Centre.

On the Sunday we headed north from our base in Great Yarmouth to visit The Broads area.

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We managed to find these Grey Partridges in a field beside the road. There was a flock of sheep in the field as well but the partridges weren't bothered by them, not even when one split up a pair. I had to take these photos through the coach window so they are a bit more fuzzy than usual. There were also several Red-legged Partridges in the same field but they were right at the back of the field and too far away for a photo.

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