So lovely to be back at RSPB Minsmere in Suffolk on the east coast of England even though we only had time for a brief evening walk out along the North Wall to the East hide.

We were very sad to see that the sand martins had abandoned their cliff nests near to the entrance but we were not too disappointed as apparently they had moved to the nearby Dunwich Cliffs and we still saw hundreds of them them dashing across the reed beds enjoying their late evening feed.

The abandoned sand martin nests

Sand martin

We saw two types of tern (I hazard a guess at common tern and sandwich tern),

thousands of  black-headed gulls, and other gulls including a mediterranean gull. There were lots of waders on the scrape (and an incredible din); however, it was quite difficult to see clearly how many there were as we were facing straight in to the sun but we could certainly make out avocets (one of our favourite birds).

On the way back we could hear bearded tits and Cetti’s warblers and saw male and female pheasants. Not a raptor in sight though, but it was a good start to our week.

Click below for gallery of photos.