The East Anglia May Weekender May 9th-11th 2025

 

The East Anglia May weekend has become a fixture and mainstay of my birding year.  From my initial solo marathon trek in 2022 where I spent three days learning about what scarce British breeding birds I could see across Suffolk and Norfolk, to this year’s four county exploration, this is one of my favourite adventures and something I plan for and look forward to for months. 

There are a small number of British breeding birds that do not breed in the west of the country, and certainly not in my rainy, urban neck of the woods.  This means that if I want to, for example, hear the purring of a Turtle Dove, I have to travel. 

Day one: Ouse Fen and Weeting Heath.

With Lee very kindly driving (all weekend!) we set off from the north west at 11am on the Friday, hoping that the Great Reed Warbler would be more cooperative than it had been the previous Sunday when the strong winds kept it hidden for hours.  Sadly the Spotted Sandpiper had left Grafham Water, so we aimed directly for Ouse Fen.  There had been reports of female Red-footed Falcons on site, and Temminck’s Stints were being flagged across the south east of the UK – we were hopeful of encountering both.  Within minutes of arriving at the reserve the rich fenland habitat had given us amazing views of Marsh Harrier, Red Kite, Hobby and a range of waterfowl.  

The Great Reed Warbler was singing loud and clear, and it didn’t take long for Ash to pick out the bird sitting on the back of reed stems making its socket wrench call.  In fact, we saw the Great Reed Warbler before we saw Reed Warbler, marking one of those strange days where the rare birds show better than the common!  This was a lifer for Lee and Ash, and a great bird to see. There was no obvious sign of the Red-footed Falcons, but given we had planned to visit Carlton Marshes SWT the following afternoon where there had been up to TEN(!) individuals, we weren’t too worried.  Temminck’s Stint eluded us – as it would the whole weekend, with reports of it at places we had visited previously a recurring theme.  Two Cranes flew in, calling and mock displaying along the reed edge, and we left Ouse feeling positive about the rest of the weekend.

We’d booked into a hotel near Ipswich, so to break the journey up, we stopped in at Weeting Heath on the Norfolk/Suffolk border in the late afternoon.  This tiny site was the only place we saw Stone Curlew all weekend, but two of them showed really well against the heat haze.  Ash found a water vole, and though we searched for Spotted Flycatcher, we didn’t find them here.  Checking into the hotel at 8pm, we found a pub nearby and had a two-pint debrief and good pub food to set us up for the early start on day two.

Day Two: Dunwich Heath, Minsmere, Carlton Marshes, Brandon Heath

A 5am wake up got us to Dunwich Heath by just after 6am, and the first bird we heard after setting off on the short walk past the campsites was a Firecrest.  A little patient scanning, and this fearless little bird came to investigate us standing in its territory.  Firecrest are much more common than they were even ten years ago, but this isn’t the case where I live, where they are a very scarcely encountered bird.  My southern friends barely blink when they find these tiny forest imps, but I get a real kick out of seeing them.  Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and a range of common passerines sang and called from the woods as we entered Dunwich in search of five species of birds that we variously wanted for lifers, year ticks, and just because they’re cool: Dartford Warbler, Nightingale, Woodlark, Green Woodpecker and Cuckoo.

We heard Woodlark straight away, but scanning across the heath we couldn’t pick it out.  Another recurring theme – we heard Woodlark briefly in three locations but couldn’t see them.  Talking to local birders at Dunwich, Kelling and Brandon over the three days they all reported that the larks appeared to have sung early and then bred, and become silent.  Numbers seem to be down, and that also fits with what local birders have told me at Budby in Sherwood.  Perhaps the unseasonably warm and bright late winter and early spring we have had this year has prompted lots of birds to breed early and stop singing. Certainly compared to last year where my Woodlark sightings at Dunwich alone were double figures in two hours, this feels like a poor year for them.

Dartford Warblers were very obvious, singing and calling from the tops of gorse and heather across the heath, and we had some amazing views of one of my favourites, the wine-coloured chests and almost disturbingly red eyes viewed under a cloudless blue sky making me feel I had entered a Mediterranean climate.  Another bird that does not come north, I would make my south-eastern pilgrimage just for this species alone.

Having spent some time last year pinning down locations of singing Nightingales at Dunwich, I was starting to become worried that we hadn’t heard them at all, and we were on the verge of leaving (and enacting a contingency location on the journey home) when we caught the liquid notes of one Nightingale blending into the song of a much closer Garden Warbler.  With some patience (and much charging around a stand of trees) we glimpsed three individuals, with reasonably prolonged views.  Hearing a Green Woodpecker in the trees bordering the fields at the exit of Dunwich we spent some time scanning before Ash clocked one flying across the field.  This was our only Green Woodpecker of the weekend, a far cry from the fourteen I saw in 2022.  Another bird that we heard half a dozen times but never saw was Cuckoo, and we heard our first here before leaving to go to Minsmere.

One of Lee’s target species for the trip was Bearded Tit, and given that we would spend time at Ouse Fen, Minsmere, Carlton Marsh, Titchwell and Frampton Marsh this weekend, I was confident that we would pick them up.  However, with a fairly strong breeze picking up, we never got eyes on them at all.  Such is birding – there are no guarantees!  The other species we were after was Bittern, and only ten minutes after entering Island Mere hide we had great views of a flying individual and two others booming from the reeds. There is such a huge range of wildlife at Minsmere that it’s sometimes hard to know where to look.  Some of the highlights included Little Tern, Kittiwake, Mediterranean Gull, and more than sixty other species.  We reluctantly left Minsmere to travel to Carlton Marshes, somewhere I’d never been, to try and see the Purple Heron and Red-footed Falcons.

I am aware that this kind of birding isn’t to everyone’s taste.  We could have spent two full days just at Minsmere, slowly absorbing all the wildlife, and I do love to do that when I have the luxury of the time to do so.  What we were doing was hard-walking, long days in the field to try and see all the species of birds we can’t see in the north-west.  It is tiring and requires stamina both physically and mentally to keep on searching for wildlife long after the feet ache and the optics feel heavy.  I won’t be in East Anglia again for probably another year, so I wanted to maximise what I could see there.  I probably pushed myself too hard on this trip, and I think it will take some time to recover physically from the tiredness, but as a once a year big push, I enjoy the kind of exertion this requires.  It is a testing kind of experience, pushing boundaries of physical stamina, ID expertise, and trial and error learning and provides memories of the kind that a Netflix binge, a doom scroll on X or hours in a hide watching robins eat seeds at a feeding station won’t.  Not that those are inherently bad things to do: everything has its time and its season. 

Carlton Marshes is a bigger reserve than I thought when we arrived.  Hobbling on weary legs in temperatures pushing 25C, we made our way to Peto’s Marsh where the Red-footed Falcons had been hunting for over a week.  Though we never saw them perched as so many incredible photos on social media have them, we were mesmerised for a couple of hours by their aerial agility and playfulness, with the juvenile birds constantly buzzing the adult male in fly-bys.  Hobbies shared the airspace and it was good to be able to compare wing shape and bulk between them and the slightly smaller Red-footed.  We sadly never connected with the Purple Heron but hunger called and we left to make our way to Brandon and a chippy tea.

Brandon Heath is a little gem that I had no idea existed until last year.  Following a stop to stretch our legs on the way from Suffolk to Kings Lynn, we stumbled on the site using eBird, and this year purposely chose to explore a little.  Frustratingly, there was no sign of the Woodlark, Marsh Tit or Cuckoo we could hear calling, and we got brief glimpses of Tree Pipit and Siskin as reward.  I would have loved to stay there until dusk to pick out Nightjar singing and owls as they began to hunt, but by this point we were exhausted and the consensus was for a hotel and a pint.  We felt that we needed a later start the following day, and so set off at 6.30am towards Kelling Heath to try and find Turtle Dove, Woodlark and Lesser Whitethroat.

Day Three: Kelling Heath, Titchwell, Snettisham, Frampton Marshes

Following a poor night’s interrupted sleep and then the relief of coffee, we parked at Kelling Heath and I considered a strange phenomenon of birding.  The previous year K and I had stumbled upon Turtle Doves when we were forced to park away from the limited area at the entrance to Kelling.  The birds had chosen the other side of the road from the main heath to sing from, and were the first bird we heard when we left the car.  This tendency to associate bird behaviour with patterns made it very tempting to walk the same way this year, and as I hiked away from the heath up the road, I wondered if the other guys in the group thought I’d lost my mind.  Within five minutes we had heard two separate Turtle Doves singing, and, though we never got the same quality views as last year, we saw two birds sitting in gorse.  Local birders told us there were four individual birds on site, but were very discouraged about the low numbers of Woodlark.

Driving through the beautiful north Norfolk villages between Kelling and Titchwell in the sun was a pleasure in itself, and arriving at the RSPB reserve the pleasure was doubled by seeing three Spotted Flycatchers in the woodlands at the entrance.  Titchwell is a great reserve, but on these weekends always suffers a little by being later in the reedbed habitat sites than Minsmere.  Almost no more species were added here, and the stop cost us high tide at Snettisham, where we had much better views of Turtle Dove, but almost nothing else, with the water being so far out.  Lessons learned – next year’s Sunday on the trip will be constructed around high tide to try and maximise wader species.

Deciding to break the journey home, we stopped in at Frampton Marshes, one of my all time favourite locations for birding.  Spoonbill, Corn Bunting, an injured Whooper Swan and four long-staying Pink-footed Geese as well as hundreds of Brent Geese on the salt marsh pushed the weekend list of species to over 120, though we were so tired by this point that we failed to find Curlew Sandpiper, Grey Plover or Temminck’s Stint on site. 

While I am sure there is a more elegant and efficient way of seeing all these species (and more) in East Anglia for those in the know, I very much enjoy this itinerary and its challenge.  Having walked around 40km, seen 122 species of birds, 11 species of mammal, had a good laugh and shared amazing wildlife experiences with good company along with good beer in great pubs, I can feel the miles in my legs and so much enthusiasm to be back out there in wildlife rich environments that I’m already planning the 2026 trip!

Thanks to Lee and Ash for good company and for driving, birding skill and fixing my camera (incredible knowledge!).  Here’s to next year… and the Spurn autumn weekender isn’t that far away!