Smew and Shorelark Dipping in Suffolk

Sunday 17th March and with a week's annual leave from work we headed off on the train to Suffolk for a few days away visiting family. The journey to Ipswich was uneventful and along the way we saw the usual red kites between Westbury and Paddington (but only brief and/or distant views) along with brent geese and red-breasted mergansers on the River Exe, a few roe deer and a lone muntjac deer in fields and a fly over great spotted woodpecker.

Monday 18th March and I had hoped to visit Bawdsey on the Suffolk coast where 4 shorelarks have been overwintering but with Mum having a chiropody appointment booked for the Wednesday at nearby Woodbridge plans were made to visit Bawdsey then instead. And so after visiting friends at Yoxford I managed to wangle an hour at nearby RSPB Minsmere and with Mum and David enjoying refreshments at the cafe I had a quick look around from the North Hide, the closest hide to the visitors centre and a good spot to look for the male and 2 female smew overwintering on the reserve. As expected there was no sign of the smew but I did get a distant view of a male marsh harrier over the reedbeds while smart looking summer plumaged Mediterranean gulls flew around calling and displaying amongst the black headed gulls. Also seen were avocets, 2 dunlin, a curlew, black-tailed godwits, a snipe, lapwings, a pair of wigeon, teal, shoveler and a little egret amongst the usual birds.

 Minsmere Scrape from the North Hide

Sizewell B from Minsmere

Tuesday 19th March and we visited the National Trust owned Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk for the day. Driving there and back through the Suffolk and Norfolk countryside revealed plenty of pheasants,  woodpigeons, stock doves, rooks, buzzards and red-legged partridges but the wildlife highlight was a large pike seen in the moat of the Hall.

 Feral Pigeon, Oxburgh Hall

Pike, Oxburgh Hall

Wednesday 20th March and after visiting The Walled Garden where a brimstone butterfly flitted past in the sunshine we headed off to Bawdsey for me to have a look for the shorelarks. I was hopeful but had noted the previous night that there was an almost full moon in clear skies and a gentle westerly breeze and it felt like the right conditions for birds to migrate across the North Sea. And unfortunately there was no sign of the shorelarks along the beach (although they had been seen on both the Monday and Tuesday), presumably they had decided to up and leave as I had suspected.

I did manage to see a few good birds though - plenty of mobile and vocal reed buntings in the reeds and stubble fields, songflighting skylarks, chiffchaff and Cetti's warbler both heard, pochard, tufted duck, little grebe and gadwall on the freshwater pools and a smart male wheatear on the rocky shore. A seal also briefly popped its head out of the water close to shore but never reappeared.

We headed off to Woodbridge for Mums appointment and while waiting for Mum I had a short walk along the nearby River Deben where on the exposed mudflats I had some good views of redshanks, black-tailed godwits, teal, wigeon, curlew and oystercatchers while a water rail squealed in the reeds and a green woodpecker yaffled away in some nearby fields

 Redshank, River Deben

Black-tailed Godwit, River Deben

Thursday 21st March and it was time to head back to Plymouth on the train and along the journey I saw more red kites but again mostly brief and/or distant views and despite my 2 major dips it had been a very enjoyable trip away (and as a footnote the shorelarks were seen again on March 25th !! and the smew were seen on March 21st!!).