Blog

It’s a boy! For those of you anxious to hear my news, Thomas was born on Halloween. Mother and baby are doing well. I’m doing pretty well too, despite the expected lack of sleep.

I’m sure if won’t be long before I introduce Thomas to the joys of birdwatching. I like to think that his first bird was a waxwing on our housing estate, but obviously at just ten days old he couldn’t see this stunning Scandinavian invader.

Waxwings have arrived in the UK in force much earlier than usual. There have been several sightings at Minsmere over the last two weeks, including 40 on 7 November, but none of them have stayed for long.

After such an exciting autumn, what will the winter bring? There are plenty more signs of winter already, with regular sightings of snow buntings, bramblings and short-eared owls, six Bewick’s swans and the first white-fronted geese all being seen in recent days.

Autumn 2008 will go down as one of the most colourful in recent years. The various tones of gold, orange and bronze leaves adorning our trees have slowly turned to brown and fallen to the ground. But one colour will be particularly associated with this autumn at Minsmere: red. The red deer rut viewpoint attracted an incredible 4500 visitors during the 18 days that it was open! That’s about five times more than we expected! It just goes to show how popular our wildlife is. Bring on winter!

This time last year, I was enjoying the delights of a South African safari on my honeymoon. This year, I’ve swapped giraffes, zebras and white rhinos in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park for red deer, rabbits and foxes on Westleton Heath.

It’s amazing, but I’d go as far as saying that Minsmere’s deer have been an even bigger draw than the African big game.

In Africa, they always refer to the Big Five, and at Minsmere we’ve got our own Big Five. Ours are avocet, bittern, marsh harrier, bearded tit and nightingale, with nightingale replaced in autumn and winter by red deer. It’s these species that generally attract the biggest interest, and on the evidence of the last month I think red deer may have shot to the top of the pile.

They say a year is a long time in politics, but it seems only yesterday that we marvelled at the majesty of black-browed, shy and yellow-nosed albatrosses in the Southern Ocean on our once-in-a-lifetime pelagic out of Cape Town.

A year on, and Lindsey and I are preparing for another once-in-a-lifetime experience. This one promises to be even better, and the prospect is both scary and exciting. Any time now we are expecting our first child, so it will be a few weeks before I write again – when I’ll let you know how we’re getting on.

In the meantime, I’d like to welcome Louise Gregory to the Minsmere team as our new Volunteer Development Officer. You may have heard from Louise via this year’s Osprey Diaries from Loch Garten, and she’ll soon be sending you her thoughts on life at Minsmere on these pages.

Watch this space for more news on the exciting comings and goings at Minsmere.

Do you ever do something and then wish you hadn’t? The red deer viewpoint on Westleton Heath has been a bit like that. But it has been so popular that we’re glad we did organise it, despite the subsequent hassle that it has caused!

The viewpoint attracted an incredible 1100 people over the three evenings, and all went away happy, even when the fog rolled in and hid the deer. Mind you, their deep bellowing will have been even more impressive with zero visibility. The staff and volunteers on duty coped admirably, given that we had been expecting about 100 people per evening! We’ve drafted in extra staff and volunteers for this weekend as the weather forecast is good again.

Just after I posted my last entry, I took Minsmere’s Wildlife Explorers group out looking for footprints. Not surprisingly, we found a good supply of red deer tracks, allowing them to take plaster casts of the hoof prints. Incredibly, one group of four deer allowed us to approach to within a few metres – even with 18 excitable children and their parents. Just another case of Minsmere’s wildlife becoming unusually confiding.

An even better find on this event was a small whitish dropping, found by one parent. This proved to be a green woodpecker dropping. Looking carefully at it, we were able to see the remains of ants – and the nearby holes in the ground indicated where the woodpecker had been probing for them. It just shows what you can find when you start looking carefully at the ground!

Of course, there’s plenty of birds to see here too. The star attraction for the last few weeks has been a colour-ringed great white egret. This bird was ringed as a chick in northern France this summer, and seems to be quite at home in Minsmere’s reedbed – often feeding alongside a grey heron and little egret at Island Mere.

October at Minsmere means different things to many people. Maybe it’s the first leaves changing colour signalling the arrival of autumn. Or perhaps it will be arrival of winter migrants and the expectation of something rare – a yellow-browed warbler or Pallas’s warbler among the goldcrests maybe?

Given the chill wind today, perhaps October signals the start of winter. Afterall, it’s only three weeks till the clocks change.

For many though, October means deer. Red deer to be specific. For October is when the deer rut takes place. When hormone-filled stags compete for control of harems of hinds and the chance to spread their genes to next generation. When the deep bellow of these impressively large beasts echoes across the heaths.

The deer rut is always a popular spectacle at Minsmere. With one of the largest herds in England, it’s perhaps not a surprise. Especially given that these are largest land mammals in the UK.

Minsmere’s red deer rut guided walks have always been oversubscribed, even though they start at a chilly 7 am! This year we’ve decided to give many more visitors the chance to discover these stunning creatures.

We are opening a special red deer viewing area on Westleton Heath, complete with mobile information point and telescopes. The viewpoint is open for the next three weekends, on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, from 3 pm till dusk. Why not join us and take in the sights and sounds of the deer rut?

Visitors to Minsmere in recent weeks have been able to see the reserve from an entirely new perspective, thanks to some new temporary nature trails.

For the first time, we opened a new trail along the edge of the reedbed to view pools that were previously out of sight to visitors. This has given many opportunities to see little egrets and waders such as green sandpipers, greenshanks and black-tailed godwits – and there was even an excellent to chance to see spoonbills here for a few weeks.

This temporary trail will close very soon to reduce disturbance to wintering ducks using the pools. Instead, this week we have opened another temporary trail. This one goes through the North Bushes, giving visitors the chance to get close to migrant songbirds.

Several warblers, including lesser whitethroats and garden warblers, are feeding on brambles in these bushes before heading south to Africa. In their place, we will soon be welcoming the first redwings, fieldfares and bramblings. Other common birds along this path include greenfinches and goldfinches, and we hope that maybe someone will be lucky enough to stumble across a wryneck.

With Minsmere’s list of sightings for the year edging closer to a record number – we’re up to 235 already – I had an expected sighting myself this week. Sadly the bird in question – a male Reeves’s pheasant – was an escapee so can’t be added to the list. It was, however, an absolutely stunning bird. The most surprising thing is that it has been here for about six months now but has been only a handful of times.

We are planning to run some extra deer watching events this autumn so you can experience the impressive annual rut. The guided walks in early October are always popular, but there are still some places available. Look out for details of some extra deer watching events during early October – details will be available early next week. Why not take the chance to watch these stunning beasts this autumn?