A week in Suffolk (1 Viewer)

[Fozzybear]

Just got back today from my spring holiday to Suffolk, lots of wandering around the heaths and forests in the countryside around Westleton, Dunwich and Minsmere. Saw loads of stuff, will attach a list below, the highlights being Stone-curlews, Little owls, Turtle Doves, Green Tiger Beetles, Nightingales, Cuckoos and Red Deer. I mostly shot video with my little camcorder this time but will take ages to sort through the footage and uploads some - I'll add a post when I do.

Didn't spend 'that' much time at Minsmere as the crowds tend to put me in a foul mood but walking around the heaths and woods was wonderful and we saw much more interesting stuff on those outings than we did at Minsmere, though watching a singing Cetti's Warbler was great and seeing a sparrowhawk attempting to hunt swifts over the island mere was quite something!

We had a fantastic cottage, there were pheasants in the garden, along with blackcaps and bullfinches and you could hear tawny owls and cuckoos calling and bitterns booming from the back door. We could also hear Stone-curlews a short walk down the road, where there were also wood larks singing. The work they're doing around this area seems to be working as we heard Stone-curlews all over the place! I had some suet pellets and tamed the birds with them - had a woodpigeon come into the kitchen for them and robins, blackbirds, dunnocks and a female pheasant at the door. Also had a female chaffinch coming down to collect bits of the coir door mat while we were sitting at the door with it open. Was great but made dragging yourself away to go out a lot more difficult than it should have been!

We found two male Adders in different places (one at Minsmere in the same spot where I'd previously seen a Slow Worm) but met a lot of people looking for them without success... impossible to say but the bad weather may have
affected them. The people at Minsmere said the Bitterns started booming a month late this year. We also saw lots of Green Tiger Beetles, and saw two of them mate - we got a really good view of them and were able to show them to some other people walking there. Also saw one hunting and it caught an ant and ate it in front of us, which was very cool!

This is the species list I drew up over the holiday, though I'm sure I've missed off some and my brother still has to work out some of the insects we saw.

Barn owl
Little Owl
Tawny Owl
Chaffinch
Bullfinch
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Linnet
Yellowhammer
Reed bunting
Coal tit
Blue tit
Great tit
Long-tailed tit
Bearded tit
Robin
Dunnock
Wren
Goldcrest
Blackbird
Mistle thrush
Song thrush
Nightingale
Stonechat
Wheatear
Nuthatch
Starling
House sparrow
Cetti's warbler
Chiffchaff
Willow warbler
Blackcap
Sedge warbler
Whitethroat
Pheasant
Red legged partridge
Kestrel
Marsh harrier
Sparrowhawk
Buzzard
Red kite
Carrion crow
Rook
Jay
Jackdaw
Magpie
Moorhen
Coot
Little Grebe
Mallard
Shelduck
Tufted duck
Shoveler
Gadwall
Canada goose
Barnacle goose
Greylag goose
Mute swan
Grey Heron
Cornorant
Bittern
Lapwing
Redshank
Godwit (not sure if bar or black tailed)
Oystercatcher
Avocet
Stone curlew
Black headed gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Large gull (herring? too far/bad angle to ID)
Wood pigeon
Collared dove
Stock dove... possibly, too distant to be sure of ID
Turtle dove
Cuckoo
Swift
Swallow
House Martin
Sand Martin
Green woodpecker
Great spotted woodpecker
Skylark
Woodlark

Bats (mainly pipistrelle I think)
Red deer
Muntjac deer
Foxes
Rabbits

Adder x2!
Smooth Newts

Spider hunting wasp (anoplius viaticus)
Green tiger beetles mating
Red mason bees
Orange tip butterfly
Peacock butterfly
Small copper butterfly
'blue' butterfly (possibly holly blue)
Leafhopper
Crane fly
Bumblebees
Carder bees
Bee fly
Common blue Damselflies
Large red Damselflies
Wolf spiders
Wood ants
Tiny wasps - both gall and ichneumon I think
Springtails
Shield bug
Ground beetles
common heath moth
Caddis fly larvae
Backswimmer
Whirligig beetle
Pond skater
Water snail?
Rove beetle
Minator beetle
Smaller dung beetle
Hoverflies - various
Sawfly
Mosquito
Weevils - various
Blowflies
St marks fly
Garden cross spider
7 spot ladybird
Harlequin ladybird

 

[Fozzybear]

Some pics:

1. Magpie at the Minsmere visitor centre cafe
2. male Chaffinch at the Minsmere visitor centre cafe
3. female Large Red Damselfly
4. on the lagoon - nesting Barnacle Geese in front of Sizewell nuke power station
5. the male Sparrowhawk that was hunting swifts and martins over the mere

 

[Fozzybear]

6. nesting Avocets on the lagoon
7. a kind of dung beetle I think
8. a male Adder disappearing into the undergrowth from one of the paths at Minsmere
9. walking through Dunwich Forest
10. very laid-back Red Deer at Minsmere

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Sounds like a good holiday Paul. Have you posted it in the right forum though? Not everyone accesses the Beeb forum.

Rich

 

[Fozzybear]

I've always posted these trip reports in ex-beeb, I tend to stick to this bit of the forum as you don't get heckled by the hardcore element - you don't really get people in ex-beeb questioning why you didn't go chasing after some rarity... 'it was on the pager, you know!'. :-O

Also I'm not about to post about a gentle holiday wandering around Suffolk in the section where people post about their expeditions to borneo... and the twitchers are hardly going to want to hear about me watching red deer and dung beetles. :-O

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Fair point Paul. So why didn't you ...................

I've got to say that I've only had helpful tips when posting a trip report and since then one of the members PM's me info on good areas.

Rich

 

[George Garner]

A great trip Paul, with a very good list,and very good report to, and I say keep posting here as you have always done.
As there is no restriction to anyone wishing to look in, why not?
George

 

[Fozzybear]

Apologies if I came over grumpy - have got post-holiday-blues and problems trying to upload videos to the web so haven't been in the best of moods today.

Yes, it was a very good trip, I really enjoyed it and seeing Stone Curlews (if at a great distance and only a stationary head) was great. We heard them all over the place though so the night walks were very atmospheric along with the owls, nightingales, deer, foxes and bats.

 

[Kits]

I enjoyed reading about your holiday, Paul, and love the photos. You certainly had a good time away and saw some fabulous birds and creatures. What a great time!

 

[Fozzybear]

It's certainly an area well deserving of its reputation, and I think becoming even better thanks to management. It's been great to see the improvements for Stone-curlews over the last few years. :t:

I've uploaded a few video clips to YouTube...hopefully the links work.

An Adder on the common
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=cFfI3UZ-ZT8

A Nightingale
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=IpIQy_St7ms

Red Deer at the Minsmere reserve
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5oXRq9OAhk0

 

[Kits]

Those were good videos, Paul. Was there sound with the nightingale one?

 

[Fozzybear]

Those were good videos, Paul. Was there sound with the nightingale one?

There certainly is when I play it.

 

[palval147]

Wow! Fozzy, super photo's & a double Wow, for the Nightingale. I only even heard one once when on an RSPB trip, in fact my three friends & I plus another lady who was with us, out of our whole group were the only people to see it & hear it. We had wandered away from the others. That really is a brilliant video.

 

[Fozzybear]

I think this part of the country is a stronghold for the nightingale, particularly this area of Suffolk. There really are a lot there, though we heard slightly fewer than last year, possibly an effect of going earlier and the long winter pushing them further into May.

I've seen one a couple of times before (I've heard them a lot more) but only brief views, whereas this one sang in the open for at least ten minutes on two occasions I passed that spot. Beautiful to see and hear - the duelling pair we found not far from there were amazing too, two birds singing just a few metres apart and really giving it their all!

 

[Kits]

Must be my computer then as I cannot get sound on any of your videos, Paul. :-C

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Also I'm not about to post about a gentle holiday wandering around Suffolk in the section where people post about their expeditions to borneo... and the twitchers are hardly going to want to hear about me watching red deer and dung beetles. :-O

Hi Paul. I put a photo of an Opel Manta in my last trip report. I figured that if it interested me then others may enjoy. Plus the bloody ferry was cancelled:-O

Thanks for sharing and thumbs up for the photos.

Rich

 

[Gill Osborne]

Oooooooh.....I'm going to dump Neil for a week and leave him at home in charge of the cats and get myself down to Suffolk! o

Fabulous write-up :t: Yet another place for me to add to my Must Explore One Day List :-O

I'd LOVE to see a Tiger Beetle o

 

[Fozzybear]

I need to sort out the video of the tiger beetles - will add links when I sort out any more.

Really is a cracking area to visit, especially if you can devote some days to exploring outside of the minsmere reserve as we've found the heaths and forests and commons to be very good indeed around that area and although minsmere is nice and you can sit in a hide or get a coffee at the cafe the general countryside areas were fantastic. Best part of going to Minsmere we always find to be the walk there from Westleton and going through the woods and heath on the north side of the reserve. When we go we try to do a little bit of looking around Minsmere, but spend most of the time in the area spread between Minsmere and Dunwich, Westleton and Middleton - all walkable and not 'too' ambitious but plenty of footpaths and interesting areas for looking for birds, mammals, reptiles and insects.

The area is lovely for renting cottages, although this one was superb for listening to tawny owls and all the birds in the garden the other cottage around the corner that we'd stayed at previously gave us views of wood larks making song-flights on the common, which was pretty cool!

 

[Fozzybear]

Have just uploaded a video of the mating Green Tiger Beetles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqiGiWzfxMc

my brother was astonished we got so close as he said they're usually very zippy and don't let you anywhere near them. I was pretty much crouched right over them at one point.