Paul Matson's Birding Blog: Saturday 21st April

Hadn't seen Gary for months, and with Spring hopefully in full flow we suggested a day out might be in order. Although given what looked like favourable conditions, being warm sunny weather with an easterly breeze, there were no significant reports of waves of migrants or rare birds. We decided we would head to Suffolk, firstly to Minsmere where there are always birds, and a Savi's Warbler had been reported, then if nothing else had turned up then head further north to Carlton Marshes where the rather longer staying American Bittern had been seen on Friday.

We arrived at Minsmere shortly after 7am and headed straight towards the Island Mere hide, on route seeing Blackcap, my first Whitethroat of the year and the sound of a booming Bittern from the reedbed. The upshot of 90 minutes in the hide was no Savi's Warbler, but to keep us interested there were plenty of Marsh Harriers, Bearded Tit, Sedge and Reed Warbler, Reed Buntings and a number of Sand Martin with one or two Swallow, a very brief view of a Bittern in flight was the only glimpse we had all morning. We relocated to the Bittern hide, where we dully heard further booming of the Bittern but it remained unsighted and we didn't really add anything new other than some flyover Med Gulls. We then walked a longer circuit which took us out to the sluice gates along the path in the dunes for a little way before returning via the beach hides to the visitor centre. Stonechat and a Dartford Warbler were in the gorse and the wet fields held Greenshank along with Teal, a few Wigeon.

The main scrape was dominated by breeding Black-headed Gulls and of course Avocets, with a smaller number of Med Gulls, Sandwich Terns, Common Terns and Black-tailed Godwit. Our search for any hint of migrants was firmly drawing a blank with no Wheatears, no Yellow Wagtails or Ring Ouzels, no Garganey on the pools by the scrapes and the only non-breeding waders were 3 Turnstone and 1 Dunlin and nothing at all moving offshore, at least the spring weather was nice !! We did, however, see a singing Lesser Whitethroat as we neared the visitor centre, stopping briefly at the Sand Martin colony before a quick sandwich lunch.

We saw a Stone Curlew on the way out of Minsmere, happily in a protected area, then we continued to Carlton Marshes arriving around 2.45pm, which was near Lowestoft on on the southern edge of the Broads. A reserve neither of us had been to before we were given directions by the helpful staff in the car park to the best potential viewing area for the American Bittern. We had more warblers in the first few hundred yards than at Minsmere, firstly a House Martin with some Swallows then Cetti's , Sedge, Reed a few Willow Warblers and a calling Cuckoo. The path lead us to where a fairly large group of birders were standing and found that several people had been waiting for around 3 hours without a view of the Bittern. We did think that later in the afternoon would be the best chance of a sighting so were not unduly concerned, so we set up our scopes on the path for potentially a long wait, with more Marsh Harriers keeping us entertained. But after about 20 minutes the American Bittern was in flight and flew over the path for an extended view before eventually dropping into the reeds (and also into the light). We were very satisfied on 2 counts, firstly that we'd had a decent sighting and secondly that our wait had been short and painless, we debated whether a further wait would yield a better experience, but it was a bird we had both seen before in Cornwall a few years ago so we decided to continue a full circuit of the reserve back to the car park. We saw more Black-tailed Godwit and heard another Cuckoo and saw a Chinese Water Deer . We had opted against taking a short-cut where a footpath cut across a corner of a field , instead taking the longer route out to the river bank path. We noticed another birder had decided on the short cut but half way across the field was challenged by a herd of Bullocks, his retreat was hasty and the lead Bulls decided it was game on and he only just made it back to the gate !.

We both agreed the reserve had a huge potential, and talking to the volunteer staff, we learnt of a planned project to acquire more land and increase the management for birds including an area for Cranes. A place we would both be happy to return to.