Minsmere and Oare

On the 3rd of August, we set out to have a day's birding at Minsmere. We need to push our year count up to a reasonable number as we have still not been too active with the trips out this year.

It's off to the beach on arrival and we are soon looking over East scrape which is packed with waders. The first tick of the morning comes when we get great views of the White-rumped Sandpiper, which we had hoped would have stayed for another day. Luckily for us, it had. It's distant but we get good scope views of the bird. The birds on the scrape are flushed by a Marsh Harrier and when they settle a Pectoral Sandpiper is found feeding alongside the White-rumped Sandpiper! Spotted Redshank was also seen for a third year tick of the morning.

We moved onto the public hide and found a single juvenile Arctic Tern among the numerous Little and Sandwich Terns.

Then Brian spots a single Little Gull adding another year tick. We spend the remainder of our visit just walking around the reserve enjoying the day.

The Pec & the White-rumped Sandpiper as they flew past.

The Spotted-Redshank

The next day a Hoopoe had spent the day at Oare Marshes. So we headed there this morning hoping it had stayed overnight. We set off to look for the returning Bonaparte's Gull that we have had the pleasure to see for a few years now and pick it out without too much trouble for a good year tick. Now a long walk for the Hoopoe, a small group had gathered but the bird had not been seen. After a couple of hours, we along with most of the others give up and head back towards the slipway picking out a couple of Whinchats on the way. We spend the next few hours just birding the site. Sadly there was still far too much water on the flood to attract any smaller waders.

The returning Bonaparte's