Up before the lark.

The alarm blared out at 3.00a.m. I was already half awake though as I am so often when I am looking forward to getting out early morning with the camera. I had decided to go to Minsmere Bird Reserve just the evening before. I knew that I was probably too late in the year now for the springtime arrivals, but I thought it may be interesting to spend a couple of hours there before the crowds gathered, just to see what was about.

I saw a Muntjac Deer and two Red Deer on the way into the resevre and was in my first hide of choice at 4.00 a.m. There were already a lot of Black Headed Gulls over the reedbeds catching flies, and as it got a little bit lighter, the Hobbys started to appear. In the end I counted five different Hobbys in the air at the same time. There was still not enough light to photograph them properly, but it was good to just sit and watch them. I never get bored of watching these fantastic little falcons!

As I was watching the Hobbys, four Red Deer came walking right past the hide. I can never resist taking pictures of any type of deer despite the fact that I have propably over a thousand deer pictures in stock! These were slightly different however as they were just moulting out of their winter coats and into their summer ones. A short while later, a Bittern came flying over the reedbeds. It was too far off to get shots of, but it was flying around for about five minutes and was giving great views through the binoculars.

I then went to another hide. As I got to the hide, there were lots of Southern Marsh Orchids growing along the edge of the path in the wet areas, so I stopped and took a few pictures of these for a little while. Thats the great thing about flowers, they never run off! Once in the hide, I settled down to see what was about. I could occasionally see Bearded Tits "pinging" to and fro over the reeds. Then a Reed Warbler came within a short distance of the hide and landed on a Yellow Iris, allowing me to get a couple of nice shots.

I was aware or a niose of fledging birds calling in what seemed like the hide itself. I was sure they were young Blue Tits and stepped outside to see if I could see where the noise was coming from. It soon became apparent as a young Blue Tit popped its head out of a knot hole in the wooden cladding on the hide! It was obvious that they were just about to fledge. So I went and got the camera out of the hide and got ready.

Sure enough, two or three had already taken the leap into the great unknown. So I waited and it wasn't long before another did just the same. It flew right at me and landed in a small Willow right beside me offering really fantastic pictures of it as it sat there taking everything in and calling to its parents.

It didn't take that long for the rest of the brood to take the leap and I eventually left them to it with the parent birds going back and forth feeding them. I then made my way back to the car and got a bonus picture of a Whitethroat on the way. It had been fairly quiet in reality this morning, but if you take the time to just watch and listen, there is always something going on to interest you.