Technical problems seem to have caused an hiatus in the posting of our report on the coach trip to Minsmere (the post seems to be stuck in draft!). So I will do a quick report now. The group visited Minsmere almost three weeks ago and it was a wonderful day. The weather was perfect and, despite the warnings that the reserve would be very busy (because of SpringWatch), it was not.
The bitterns were one of the stars of SpringWatch and they were also the stars of our visit. There seemed to be bitterns flying everywhere and everyone enjoyed good views of them. Some of us were very fortunate to see a bittern swimming! I thought it looked like a young bird but I am not sure whether the photograph confirms this or not. Thanks to Terry for the photograph.
For me personally I most enjoyed seeing the young ringed plover running about on the beach (I refuse to call them babies!). It was good to see that, despite all of the disturbance on the beach, the ringed plover were successful. But I don’t understand why we can’t create more beach sanctuaries for nesting birds – they only need a few weeks.
Malcolm