Wader fest at Minsmere

With a week off work decided to head for Minsmere on what turned to be a very productive day in the pool by the visitor centre nice to see my first Emerald Damselfly of the year before heading down to the East hide.

Entered the East hide where almost straight away had a super view of a Collared Pratincole flying past the window give super views before flying off east and later reappearing. Out over the scrape had family of Terns around with Sandwich, Little and Common Terns making up the numbers and sometime a Little Gull or Kittiwake would zip through.

Hunting Little Tern

Tern Flock

Hunting Common Tern

Begging Common Tern

Feeding on the scrape itself where plenty of waders which good numbers of Avocets and Dunlins feeding with a Wood Sandpiper, Common Sandpier and Little Stint in with them and some Black-tailed Godwits looking super in their supper plumage along with a few Spotted Redshanks but the hightlight was when a pir of Summer plumage Red Knots appeared as I usually only see the in their winter coats.

Summer Plumage Black-tailed Godwit

Young Dunlin feeding

Common Sandpiper

Feeding Avocet

Red Knots

Staffa and Iona

Have leaving Lunga the next stop was a visit to the island of Staffa where we visited Fingal's Cave which  is mainly made of the hexagonal basalt columns which were around this part of the island.

Fingal's Cave

From above

And inside

The hexagonal basalt columns

The last stop of the day was a stop to the Island of Iona well know for its Abbey and plenty of sandy beach walked quite a bit around it where you could hear the Corncrakes calling another bird which was heard but not seen but a great spring song. Walked along a few of the beaches with a few wader nesting mainly Oystercatcher, Ringed Plovers and a few Rock Pipits on the beaches and Common and Arctic Terns feeding offshore.

The Abbey from offshore

One of the sandy beaches

Young Ringed Plover

Young Rock Pipit

Scotland Highlight #1 Treshnish Isles

In june went up to the West coast of Scotland one of the highlights was a trip to the islands first trip was to Lunga which is a super seabird colony with the Puffins so near people were taking pictures with smartphones!! A great place to walk around with wildlife everywhere with Guillemots, Razorbills and Puffin going in and out constantly and Kittiwakes and Fulmar around the edge and on land lots of Rock Pipits and Wheatears breeding and the odd flock of Twite which briefly showed. Two hours was never enough time to spent on this island with the sounds and sights going on but did manage to get to the top of the island to get a view out to see and see how next destination the Isle of Staffa more on that later in the week.

Puffins Galore

Razorbill in flight

The auks

Fulmar in flight

One of many Rock Pipits around

Adult Wheatear

One of a pair of Twite which flew in briefly

Views from the top towards Staffa and the other Treshnish Isles

Walk at Bricket Wood

Nice walk at Bricket Wood with Butterfly Conservation despite the cloudy start a good total of 18 Species seen with the highlight 2 Purple Emperor seen on the main ride though high up and seen clashing in there main area in the woods along with quite a few purple hairstreaks.

On the ride itself had a nice number of Silver-washed Fritillarys and White Admirals feeding and clashing along with the Freshly emerged Peacocks with a selection of Skippers, Meadow Browns and Ringlets a good morning out.

Wildflower meadow at heartwood

Each year at my local woods they re-seed Wildflowers mainly Poppies and Cornflowers from last year crops the fields nearby usually looking very pretty and this year was the same so a few images from one evening spent down their.

Last light on the poppy meadow

The Mixed Meadow

Cornflower