The Autistic Naturalist: April 15th Minsmere

Sunday, 15 April 2018

April 15th Minsmere

Ghostly figures in the fog!

With so many migrant birds arriving this week, Minsmere is normally a great place to see them. Not today! It seems my parents and I have picked the wrong day for an outing here. There were birds on the reserve somewhere, but it was incredibly difficult to spot them thanks to an extremely thick layer of fog. You could hear them at least, especially the bitterns that were booming on and off all day.

Though the fog was a real problem for spotting birds, it was in itself visually spectacular. People, wildlife and the landscape were all like ghosts in it. It was rather eerie like walking around a Silent Hill game. You could imagine bumping into one of the game's horrifying monsters at any moment. However, there was nothing to fear of here. Dew revealed every spider web on every vegetation, bejewelling them in sparkling drops like natural jewellery. Birds were mostly voices without faces and the landscapes were shapes obscured in a pea soup. It was easier to photograph the fog than the wildlife today.

The sea

View from North Hide

View from East Hide

Spider web covered in dew

Daffodil

Rabbit

Chiffchaff

While it wasn't easy to see them, I did see a few things. There were Canada and greylag geese, lapwings, redshanks, shovelers, black-headed gulls, avocets, chiffchaffs and blackcaps, but half of them were so obscured by the fog that my camera could not focus on them. After lunch, the conditions did improve in some places than others. The view from Island Mere Hide was much clearer than from Bittern Hide, but the worst of the fog was mostly over at the scrapes. Even with the fog lifted slightly, there was still very little to see. The main highlights being marsh harriers, great crested grebes and sand martins. I can't wait until we are finally done with this on and off week-long spell of dull murky weather. Bring back the sun, I say!