Well the campsite was in Suffolk, so....how could we resist visiting Minsmere? We couldn't. And we picked the perfect day for going, and this time I am not being sarcastic about it. Really I'm not.
Maybe this picture will help you to believe me.
Curlew Sandpiper is that? Yep. Well from the East hide I got 5 life-ticks, I know, I hardly dared believe it. The one the other birders got most excited about though was a Wood Sandpiper, showing well but far away, very far away. Typical rare bird behavior, well if it's a rare bird that I see typical behavior. But regardless of this I enjoyed it extremely, again no sarcasm there.
We missed a Bittern from that hide -typical- so moved on to the aptly named Bittern hide where 30 minutes provided us with brief flight views of a Bittern -not so typical- then another flight view 20 minutes later. After another hour or so my father asked whether I wanted to go to one of the other hides. I said we should wait a little longer -hence the title- and that paid off as soon, the Bittern came out of the reeds only 20-30 meters away! Ah, the satisfaction of finally seeing a Bittern when time after time I had failed.
As though to treat me for my perseverance -if you can call it that- this Bittern didn't just show for a few minutes and then disappear, it showed for well over 80 minutes and was still there when we left -unbelievable.
I mean could you hope for better views? Well I suppose that if I could have been eye level.....
I must confess to being slightly trigger happy, I took well...ah...about 500 images of the one bird...ahem. Worth it though.
Sounds brilliant, thinking about it now I've seen a few of my life ticks at Minsmere, as for the 500 images of one bird, that brought a smile to my face, I still do that to this day a friend once said to a bloke who asked him why he was taking so many images of one bird his reply was "with some species you'll never know if you'll ever get such good views again...so fill your boots!".
ReplyDeleteGreat images of the Bittern