I would have liked to join Brian at Minsmere on Tuesday but had a lot of work to get done in the garden so I made a decision to stay at home & watch the wife working on it,( only kidding).
Brian got 4-year ticks on his visit, so Jimmy & I set off at 5am to arrive at Dunwich Heath just before 7am only to find it all shut off.
Not to be put off we head down the road to Westleton Heath & start our search for our first Dartford Warbler of the year.
It's not easy to find or hear any but with some perseverance, we pick up a few calls & then get good views of a single bird a bit disappointing not to find more but it's a tick so a good start to the day.
With some directions from Brian, we head to Saunders hill that is not far past the little layby for Island Mere hide.
As soon as we get out of the car we hear the signing of the Iberian Chiffchaff as Brian said we would.
So another good year tick. On to Minsmere now, as you would expect with most of the reserve still closed, the car park only has 3 other cars parked up.
The only hide open was the public hide, so we headed along the beach stopping to scan a few times.
On reaching the hide we find only 2 other birders present so social distancing no problem.
On scanning the South scrape we find our first Little Gull along with many Sandwich Terns.
One of the fellows in the hide thinks he has the Roseate Tern but we are not too sure. So just the 4 ticks the same as Brian the day before gives us a good day's birding.
On leaving the hide we get to see at least 3 Dartford Warblers if we had known it could have saved us a trip to Westleton Heath but to be fair it's only up the road. Starting to feel like we are birding again, just waiting till we can all head off together in one car.
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