At last Spring has sprung. Hawky and I headed north up the A12 yesterday to give some east coast Suffolk sites a bash, and it turned out to be a really good day's birding.
Not too long after 1st light we were at Landguard and surprisingly the only birders on site. We gave the site a good bashing but to be honest it was pretty quiet. There was a good number of Wheatear, c20+, and a couple of Lesser Whitethroats, but that was about it.
We decided to head north, on route we stopped near Aldeburgh for Stone Curlew and managed to find a pair quickly, providing good views. Next stop Kessingland where Shaun and Redsy were staying with their families for the weekend, to the Hoopoe Shaun found the previous day. The bird showed immediately but was very skittish being pushed around by birders/photographers all over the place. With patience I think you could get pretty close to this bird if you monitored it's circuit of the area and waited for it to come to you, alas no one wanted to seem to do that. Still it was great to see my 2nd Hoopoe is 4 weeks and my 5th in the UK.
It was now lunchtime and surprisingly despite a good easterly wind nothing else had been found. We opted to head back south and hit Minsmere. It really was a proper dude-fest down there, but, you can help but like the place. Good views of all the usual suspects and Bittern were had as well as my 1st Hobbies of the year.
I spy with my little eye something beginning with B
The day was rounded off well when eagle eye Hawky picked out a cracking male Redstart in the gorse by the sluice. Great bins views were had but the bugger wouldn't sit up or out so didn't provide much in the way of photo opps.
It was good to meet Suffolk birder Jonno09Jonno for a chat and finally a shout out to Essex/London birders, Shaun Harvey for finding the Suffolk Hoopoe and Dave "Bradders Jnr" Bradnum for unearthing a Little Bunting at Holme on the north Norfolk coast. Good work fellas.
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