Not so much of a walk, at 2 miles, as a guided tour of the Nature Reserve, we were treated to expert advice on observing the wildlife and a wealth of information about the reserve and the things we could see. This was our route.
Our group was split into two and our guide was the experienced and knowledgable Ian Barthorpe. We did the route anti-clockwise while the other group went the other way.
Here are a few of my photos...
Before we started, Ian insisted that we all should have binoculars to get the most from the walk. I was going to rely on my camera, but went and got my binoculars from the car too. He then gave us a tutorial in how to set them up.
First bird spotted... a robin
There are bluebells near the visitor centre.
We passed bird and bat boxes and were told how to identify an Alder our way to our first viewpoint, the Wildlife Lookout. The Scrape is man-made, made by, er, scraping with a digger.
Ian pointed out some of the birds we could see. I wish I'd taken a notebook rather than having to try and remember! A Marsh Harrier flew over, causing a rumpus among the other birds, but I didn't manage to catch it properly with my camera. An Avocet, iconic of Minsmere.
Barnacle Geese with goslings .
The goose at the top right doesn't belong here. It's a Bar-Headed Goose.
A nesting Oystercatcher with its distinctive carrot beak.
Before we got to the South Hide, we stopped at the 'Pool of despair'. In 2015 there was a surprising and brief visit of a Black-Browed Albatross and in 2016 the first UK visit of a Western Purple Swamphen. The despair is that of the reserve staff who were absent and never got to see them.
There were plenty more birds to see. Here is a nesting Black-Headed Gull.
As we reached the far south-east corner of the reserve at The Sluice, we met the other half of our group going the other way.
By now the cold wind off the sea had got up and the rain started. We didn't bother visiting the beach but took shelter the other side of the dunes as we walked on to the East Hide.
Here we were closer to the Kittiwakes and Mediterranean Gulls we had seen from the other side of the Scrape.
My attempts to snap this Avocet was photo-bombed by a gull.
A colourful Shoveller Duck.
Here is a little Sandpiper.
Once the rain had eased off we headed back towards the visitor centre.
On the way, we passed the nesting ground of the Stone-curlews, aka Wailing heath chickens. They are nocturnal so we didn't see any.
Minsmere has recently recently been found to be the home of a large variety of solitary bees and wasps. Many of them are to be found in summer along a sandy bank by the footpath. Here is one of their nesting holes. One of the varieties is the Bee Wolf. The pictures on the blog post linked to are amazing.
Near the visitor centre is the sandy cliff used as a nesting site by Sand Martins. We saw lots of them flitting about from the East Hide.
Our final piece of wildlife was right beside the visitor centre. These holes are the traps and lairs of the Antlion larvae.
In the shop, I couldn't resist getting a memento of my visit.
So thank-you to Ian for an entertaining and extremely informative walk. A shame the weather stopped the butterflies coming out for us, but we saw plenty more bird-life than there is room to show in this post.
Next time I'll have to take a tripod - at full zoom my hands aren't steady enough for sharp pictures. You can see more of my photos here on Flickr.
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