East Anglia again

Here we are in EA once again, doing the visiting-and-sightseeing thing. Not the most auspicious start to the trip, as we'd got no more than 10 minutes down the road when S was copiously sick in the back seat: a cascade of porridge and raspberries descending across the car-seat, her (of course) fresh clean clothes and everything in between. Poor girl looked pretty shell-shocked after that, unsurprisingly, but soon fell asleep for the next stage of the journey, whilst we negotiated the rain, spray and wind past Bristol and along the M4. By the time we'd passed Swindon the weather was sufficiently dry and bright for the odd Red Kite to be out and about, easing their way through the gusts and the swirling mix of Rooks which rose to mob them with an elegant aplomb.

Our first port of call was Saffron Waldon, where we dropped in on friends who have recently had a baby and are coming to terms with the sleepless phase. Few opportunities for any serious out-and-abouting, added to which the weather was foul - blasting easterly wind and temperature around zero, even before wind-chill is taken into account. In fact, all we really noted was that the Rooks were undaunted by the weather and have begun sitting on their nests. And that Saffron Waldon is actually quite a pretty town...

We moved on to Norwich, where we descended on another couple of friends. No improvement in the weather, but nothing ventured & so on, so we headed out to Holkham to see what we could see on Sunday. The wind was so cold and so strong that S kept her head down the entire time we were out, sleep or wake, snuggled as far inside my coats as possible. Puddles and damp hollows in the pastures were rimed with ice created by the wind-chill. Birds were scattered sparsely around the site - a pair of Wigeon here and there on the pastures, a scatter of Lapwings disconsolate amongst the tussocks. In the occasional shelter of the pines, the sun was warm and spring-like, but move back into the wind and all such thoughts were put aside. We rounded the eastern end of the pines near Wells and turned west along the beach. The sand moved past us at a rate of knots, making a dun knee-high mist which obscured the ankles and shins of walkers and indeed almost totally obscured some of their dogs. The few birds on the beach were hunkered down tight against the surface, all to the seaward side of the blasting sand - a handful of Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, a few Sanderling, a couple of Dunlin, Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit and a solitary Redshank. By the time we returned to the car we were breathless with the cold, ears ringing to the sound of pounding surf, howling wind and whispering sand. The only one who seemed entirely at ease was S, who'd woken not long before...

Holkham beach. We just don't have that extent of sand in Devon.

It was windy. Very windy. Jake (the dog) must have been grateful to have a tail to keep the wind out.

It was windy. Very windy... All day.

The afternoon's visit to Titchwell, just a little further west along the coast, was - if anything - even more windy. So much so that we took a quick walk along to the sea and back without stopping for much at all - a hunting Barn Owl in the lee of the woods, a pair of Pintail dabbling languidly in the shelter of a saltmarsh island, a female Red-crested Pochard (where did she come from, I wonder?)... and a vast flock of gulls (mainly Common) sheltering on the pools away from the sea. We soon headed back to the car and hit the road for Norwich.

On, then, early in the morning, to the wild and woolly hinterlands of Suffolk for a few days with Na's aunt and uncle. The weather finally began to perk up, S began to perk up as well, and Na came down with her tummy upset: timing! We managed to relax a little though, spending some time stacking wood and digging over the veg beds for the spring, unearthing vast quantities of bindweed root and taking the opportunity to wander round Minsmere and Walberswick. The wind abated a smidgen, but only a smidgen, and we were rewarded with a fine Short-eared Owl hunting the coastal marshes at Walberswick and another Barn Owl on the heaths, and a handful of Smew, an adult Little Gull and a trio of Whooper Swans at Minsmere. Hardly the stuff of epic, but nice enough for a  southwest birding family.

A Lapwing eyes us suspiciously from the rabbit-nibbled grassland at Minsmere. Or maybe it's watching the rabbit in the background.

And now here we are with some warmer weather - Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins are trickling in through the local ponds and it seems as if spring might finally have sprung upon us. Here's to it!

Hazel catkins - and a couple of flowers to go with them.

Male Chaffinch. Not in song in East Anglia when we were there, but now they're hitting their stride here.

East Anglia

An invitation to a friend's wedding gave us our first major travelling test with Sabina. The wedding was in Norwich and we knew that we had the chance to stay with some relatives and some friends, so it seemed like a good idea. Accordingly, we set out on a (yet another) fine spring morning soon after breakfast and trundled steadily along the M5 to Bristol, then east along the M4. We planned in a couple of breaks to allow for feeds and nappy changes - an immediate change from our usual routine - and motorway service stations being what they are, I planned the stops for some local wildlife trust reserves. So, we took our first break at Clouts Wood & Markham Banks, just south of Swindon.

This turned out to be a narrow valley with steep grassed slopes on the northern side - calcareous no less, so likely to be rather interesting from our point of view, but not much to be seen at this time of year - and a deciduous woodland on the southern slope. A small stream trickled gently along the valley floor, with occasional (and rather dry-looking) mires feeding in to it.

The sun continued to shine, the birds sang - though still no more migrants than we've already been hearing, so Chiffchaff and Blackcap joining the resident Goldfinches, Blackbirds, Robins, Wrens and Woodpigeons, and the woodland flora looked - rather unsurprisingly - much the same as we see round here: Bluebells, Ramsons, Primroses, Dog's-mercury and so on. Despite the relative familiarity of the site's wildlife, it was a near-idyllic spot to stop and break a boring journey. We walked the length of the valley to the scramble up the escarpment, to find a rather disappointing surround of intensive arable and dairy farming, and a newly-planted woodland shielding what looked like a set of industrial units. Can't have it all, I guess.

We headed back to the journey. Several Red Kites later, and a fairly rapid drive around the north side of the M25 and we were headed off up the A12 to the next break: Tiptree Heath, in Essex. By the time we left the car, Sabina was wailing and we were both getting a bit tired. Naomi parked - almost abandoned the car - and we scurried to the shade of a young oak to feed and change the beast. She wasn't really in the mood for food, just bored with lolling in the car-seat, so we walked briefly around part of the reserve - to the tune of a Willow Warbler - and slugged out the last few miles to Stoven for our first stop.

The evening passed in a bit of a haze: much family catch-up, a short walk around the local fields (many many Red-legged Partridges, a couple of Brown Hares and the odd Yellowhammer) and then a slide into sleep.

Next morning was my watershed moment: my first visit to the quintessential RSPB reserve: Minsmere. Naomi blithely promised Bitterns and all sorts of interesting goodies, so I was well primed for the event. The drive there took us along increasingly smaller roads (that looks wrong somehow, but decreasingly smaller really doesn't work. Incrementally? Whatever.) and over a tedious succession of speed-humps. Finally, however, we arrived and fed the baby in the carpark, as flocks of Black-headed Gulls squalled overhead against the blue. Amongst the squeals and squalls were a couple of deeper, more melodic calls: a pair of Mediterranean Gulls wheeling amongst the rest, wings shining-white compared to the duskier underwings of the Black-headed Gulls. Not a bad start.

Minsmere wasn't, to be honest, quite what I was expecting, but was still an interesting site. The main scrape was heaving with Black-headed Gulls, all settling in and pairing up for the breeding season, with a smattering of Avocets also beginning to pair up and a handful of ducks either fuelling up for their return to the north or perhaps thinking of breeding themselves: Shoveler busily patrolling the water with bills just submerged, Wigeon waddling across the grass tugging away at the new spring growth, and a handful of Mallards, Gadwall and a couple of Teal loafing quietly on the water's edge here and there.

The main scrape at Minsmere, from the hide along the shingle ridge.

Black-headed Gulls and a lone Greylag

Just to the south lies Sizewell nuclear power plant - it's amazing how nuclear sites tend to be associated with good birding spots; in part because of the warm water outfalls from the cooling process, but still.

We walked steadily around the reserve, never really hanging around too much as Sabina became fractious if we spent too long in one place. We were fortunate though, in that we managed to bump into not one, but two Bitterns, stealthily emerging from the reed fringe, and a party of Bearded Tits bouncing and pinging erratically in last year's reed growth nearby. Feeding time loomed for us all, so we retreated to the shade of the woodland fringe and spent a contemplative hour watching a pair each of Coal Tits and Great Tits investigating the knotholes in the trees, searching for suitable nest-sites. Spring looming indeed...

Spot the birdie

Creeping out of the reeds

OK, not the most up-close and personal pictures you'll ever see, but with a 105mm lens, I think it's not too bad an effort.