Saturday 15 July 2017

Vagrant Emperor Minsmere

With the Jims needing Roseate Tern for a life tick I took them up to Minsmere today arriving at about 6.30am. We headed out along North Wall and plotted up in the Public hide that overlooks South scrape. With no sign of the target we continued to scan finding twenty plus Little Gulls with some in full summer breeding plumage. A Little Tern and several Sandwich Terns mixed up the count with the breeding Common Terns. Med Gulls have had a good year here and a trio of Kittiwakes was a nice find too.
The wader count was pretty good with Spotted Redshank, Green Sand, Common Sand, Lapwing, Blackwit, Avocet, Ringed Plover, Redshank, Oystercatcher to name a few.

Marsh Harriers and Bearded Tits showed themselves along with Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Stonechat and the usual Warblers but for me the star birds were the Swallows at the sluice gates.

Unfortunately despite a six hour shift we failed to connect with the Rosie Tern so that tick will have to wait for another day but any day at Minsmere is one to be remembered.

Little Stunner
Swallow 
what a star!
Common Tern
Young Robin in the garden 3rd single bird brood this year!
Young Stonechat at Minsmere
And another Fox to finish.
Oh and on another note....Jimmy just text to say the Dragonfly we took a photo of today may be a rare visitor (we wouldn't know!) He put it out on twitter hoping somebody would put a name to it and it seems to be considered a Vagrant Emperor which he's been told is quite twitchable in the dragonfly circles so here's my shot hoping it helps with a positive ID for those interested.

Vagrant Emperor at Minsmere ?
Note: Jimmy has now had the ID confrimed by the British Dragonfly society

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