BIRDING THE SUFFOLK COAST – Sunday 19th February 2012

With bright, clear and windy conditions forecast we headed north towards Suffolk in anticipation of what the day would hold. Our first stop was under the Orwell Bridge where we found a winter-plumaged RED-THROATED DIVER mid river, as well as LITTLE and GREAT CRESTED GREBE. Along the shoreline were TURNSTONE, REDSHANK and DUNLIN and around the docks a large number of SHELDUCK.

After stopping for refreshments we arrived at Felixstowe Ferry and undertook a walk along the seawall in search of BRENT GEESE. Once we had located the flock we picked out a first summer RED-BREASTED GOOSE amongst them which after a while flew onto the river.

We then had a brief stop at North Warren to find around 200 BARNACLE and 50 WHITE-FRONTED GEESE grazing on the fields. A visit to Thorpeness Mere found the more common wildfowl although no sign of the reported Great Egret, so we cut our losses and went on to Westleton Heath.

After a short walk we found two DARTFORD WARBLERS quite happily going in and out of a large Gorse bush and by now we were hungry so had our lunch which was most welcome.

Afterwards we drove to Minsmere noting around 25 TUNDRA SWANS in a nearby field before arriving in the carpark. We wandered down to the scrape which produced three more TUNDRA SWANS and on a pool in the reedbed we were pleased to find three female and a drake SMEW. On south scrape we spotted another redhead SMEW and nearby on the sea RED-THROATED DIVER and GREAT CRESTED GREBE.

With the afternoon slipping by we went to the new Island Mere hide and had good views of MARSH HARRIER, BARN OWL, nine SMEW, two BITTERN and a WATER PIPIT. Bittern hide gave us good views of RED DEER and another two BITTERN.

After eating Annette's fruitcake we headed for home, stopping for the sight of around 5000 STARLINGS swirling over the reeds and for three WOODCOCK. As we passed through the Leiston area we added four more WOODCOCK to our tally, a good end to the day.