A lucky day!!

Today has been quite simply one of those to cherish. Had a friend from Twitter visiting today and had promised to take him to Minsmere. That's 3 lots of visitors I've taken there in the last 3 weeks. Brilliant to share it with people as I'm usually on my own.

The day dawned very foggy and I thought that we were in for a dreary visit a la the one I did with Pontycyclops 2 weeks ago. But as we drove down the sun began to burn through and, by the time we arrived it was bright sunshine and blue skies.

It was Minsmere's Christmas Fair today and, as part of that, they were raffling a selection of Usborne books so I bought some tickets, knowing that I never ever win raffles.

On the reserve we had a not very fruitful first hour. Lots of birdsong but very few birds on view and those were mainly Chaffinches. Then onto the Bittern Hide. Not the best hide at around midday on sunny day as the sun makes viewing tricky.

However, We soon forgot about that as John suddenly nudged me and pointed to a Kingfisher sat on a post. I have seen Kingfishers before, but only fletting glimpses. This one hung around for around 20 minutes, even doing some fishing. I took quite a few pics but, whilst you can tell it's a Kingfisher, they are not really blip quality.

Then someone suddenly said, "Bittern!" and there was a Bittern flying straight over the top of the Kingfisher. Both John and I were very happy. I often see Bittern at Minsmere but they are a rarity for John. Not long after we were treated to a great view of both male and female Marsh Harriers.

We went for lunch positively buzzing at our luck. We then walked down through the reedbeds where we were frustrated to hear loads of Bearded Tits but only an occasional glimpse and twitching reed stem.

The final highlight of the day were the Starlings. Not a huge murmuration tonight - they seemed to arrive late and ended up in 2 groups rather than one large one - but it was magical standing in the reedbed as the smaller flocks flew over our heads and the Konick ponies grazed on the other side of the ditch.

As we walked by to the car John commented that it would be the perfect end to a lucky day if I won the raffle. Got back home and there was a call on the answering machine - I'd won the raffle!!! A lucky day indeed.

I would post more pics from today but I'm rather tired and haven't the time to upload them at the moment. Sorry.