You know how sometimes when one thing goes wrong, so do several others. Well, yesterday was one of those days. there was definitely an air of midwinter madness about proceedings - and it wasn't just from the people concerned!
I should have known it was going to be one of those days from the start. The regular visitors among you will know that Minsmere has an official Met Office weather station. The white box on the bank behind the vsitor centre is a Stevenson Screen, containing various thermometers that take readings of current, maximum and minimum temperature, while beside it are further themometers for measuring soil temperature and a rain guage. Every morning, one of heads up the bank behind the visitor centre to take the various readings. It's a five minute job, but it's not enjoyable when an icy wind blows or it's pouring with rain. It's also not fun when, en route to the guages, you step into a snow drift up to your knees - as I did yesterday. A quick dust off and tip the snow out of my trianers and no damage done though.
The day appeared to be going better with a quick lunchtime stroll around the Scrape. With hardly another sole on the reserve, I was enjoying identifiying various tracks in the snow - rabbit, munjac, red deer, fox and pheasant were easy; water rail and pied wagtail were helped by spotting the birds ahead of me. Some tracks were more tricky, but I think I found water pipit, maybe water vole, probably badger - and of course human. Little did I know how these tracking skills might come in useful.
Although the Scrape was virtually all frozen, there were still some good birds around. At least 500 wigeons were at the back of the konik field, being hassled by a couple of marsh harriers. A small open area on East Scrape help 402 mallards, about 200 teals and a handful of shovelers, gadwalls and wigeons, plus a few gulls. A drake pintail flew out to sea, and three Bewick's swans flew over, then the ringtail hen harrier dashed across the Scrape, disturbing one of many snipe.
Bewick's swans by Jon Evans
It was a good day for waders, but they were mostly on the beach: three sanderlings and ten dunlins south of the sluice, three grey plovers, several redshanks, two turnstones, one lapwing, and one golden plover flushed from behind east hide. Snipe were widespread in the dunes, and another was flushed from the North Wall. There was also a grey seal near the sluice.
North Bushes was a good place to find birds too, with small flocks of blackbirds, redwings and fieldfares gorging themselves on berries, a stunning male bullfinch, a male sparrowhawk, and a tiny goldcrest.
Goldcrest by Jon Evans
Returning to the office, I had the afternoon nicely planned out - including writing this blog - but the best laid plans... as they say. For at least the last hour several of my colleagues had been trying to locate seven ponies that had escaped from their enclosure at Aldringham Walks (part of RSPB North Warren), so I offered to join the rest of the team trying to round up these wayward ponies. That took up the rest of the day, and I'll discuss the fun and games we had in a separate blog.
Returning to Minsmere to collect my car, we had great views of a tawny owl swooping low across the road. Then the fun really began. Leaving the reserve on very icy roads, I got only partway up Vault Hill (beside Scotts Hall) before my traction control cut in, stalling the engine. At that point I was going no further. Forward and the wheels just spun helplessly before I slid back downhill. Backward and the car crabbed worryingly sideways. Luckily, I radioed through to the wardens and Ricky was still around. With his tractor skills, he managed to drag me to the top of the hill, from where I was able to proceed unaided. Thanks Ricky - I owe you a pint (or two).