A pretty good day yesterday, I went to Minsmere where I hadn't been for a long time, I put my RSPB membership card in a safe place and, well you know the rest . . . this year's card arrived and went straight in my wallet.
Not so many waders, they're mostly on the estuaries. A few of the Usual Suspects, plus a Grey Plover and a Spotted Redshank. Quite a lot of ducks, Teal, many more Wigeon, Gadwall and a few dozen Shovelers. I walked the big circuit without too much difficulty, though I stopped at every hide.
Down on the beach there were three Snow Buntings. They'd buggered off to the south by the time I got there so I stumbled over the dunes covered in tussocks, trying not to go down a rabbit hole into an alternative reality.
By the time I got to where they'd gone they'd flown back again. Eventually I watched them for a while scuttling and flittering about. They look very like shingle. You can tell when it's actually shingle because it doesn't move. After they'd entertained us for a while they flew off further north, they don't hang around for long.
I got to the other end of the reserve just in time to see the Starling roost build up. First one flew over going WTF? Then a few small flocks turned up and merged together and swirled about the sky throwing some shapes. At one stage they plunged into the trees, then flew back out again. Eventually the rest of the flock arrived in the form of a massive horizontal sheet, and the whole murmuration did some spectacular aerobatics before suddenly dropping into the reeds and vanishing.
They were quite a long way off but no bad thing as we could watch the entire performance.
A few hundred gulls went over, and a few dozen Greylag Geese. By then the sun had nearly gone down and the arctic breeze was getting to me. I was fooled by the bright sun into thinking it was as warm as Monday and went out without my winter woollie.
So I drove home and stuffed my face with bacon, mushrooms, multicoloured peppers, chillies, garlic, paprika, oregano, thyme and some toasted sesame oil, all fried in EVOO, with a large handful of purple sprouting broccoli and a couple of glasses of Chilean Malbec, followed by a couple of squares of 85% chocolate and a cup of coffee, then crashed out for a couple of hours. By then I hadn't eaten for about eight hours, completely impossible during my low fat years.