RSPB Minsmere — Attraction in East Suffolk

I'm as much a fan of the RSPB as the National Trust & English Heritage, if you've read any of my other reviews, they all feature heavily on our 'to do' list, but this reserve at Minsmere, just South of Dunwich, and literally right next door to Sizewell, is really special.  We heard Bitterns booming here tho, and saw deer and other wildlife up close & because they know they're safe here they don't run away.  RSPB Minsmere has a beautiful woodland area as well as the famous heathland walk, partially a boardwalk alongside a waterway, both areas are full of wildlife. You need to respect the silence of the bird watching hides, & its not a place to take unruly children and spoil the enjoyment of others.  It's also absolutely no dogs allowed, understandably, but there is a pebble beach just outside the Eastern fence & the birds that frequent the rugged coastline to its Eastern border don't care about fences.  It's also bordered by NT Dunwich Heath, a short walk away, which is pretty amazing, there is a fabulous dog friendly cafe in the old coastguard lookout on top of the cliffs with a 270 degree view, and the cakes are superb.  This whole area is worth spending a couple days exploring so just leave the car at one of the car parks and spend a few hours walking on the coast here, it's awesome.  If you head North from Minsmere, you get to NT Dunwich Heath, then the beautiful ruins of the old Abbey, then Dunwich village, both of which are also well worth a visit.  It won't take you a lot longer to walk than drive it so abandon the car and explore this area on foot.

Basically if you look at a map, starting at Sizewell A, then heading North, there's Sizewell B, (also a good stop to find out more about Nuclear Energy), then potentially Sizewell C, (depending if the protests stop it), then RSPB Minsmere, then NT Dunwich, then the ruined Abbey and Dunwich village.  You can also do it the other way round if you park at Dunwich village beach side car park, (which is free), and head South.  Plus, if you're doing this one late afternoon to evening, you won't risk getting locked in at the RSPB or NT car parks, as the barrier comes down pretty promptly when they all go home.  Leave a donation in their coffers at Dunwich village if you can afford it tho, its a superb facility so lets...

What can I say? What a place!! Wonderful scenery and fantastic birds. I have been a birder for many, many years but due to work and family commitments this was my first ever trip to one of the RSPB flagship reserves. They had a high standard to beat because we are quite regular visitors to Ham Wall and Arne by I have to say on many levels they beat it. After all, when you are told where to go to see scaup, Great egret and stone-curlew then it doesn't get much better

The staff/ volunteers on the reception desk were (in the main) extremely friendly and helpful as were the people in the shop. If you are buying technical kit the prices are decent but be careful which assistant serves you as some staff are far better than others. I was lucky in being served by a birder who knew the products well

The cafe menu was excellent and it was good to see plenty of savoury vegan options but please can you add a bit more in the way of cakes? We vegans like our naughties too!! Staff in the cafe were a tad surly but not enough to spoil the occasion and, in fairness, they were very busy.

We chose to visit during a schoolday (I don't like anklesnappers) and we were very lucky but I can well imagine weekends and half-term could get busy with kids running around the hides so you may want to factor that in to your visit.

If you love birds then you HAVE to visit. We went in early October and it was superb but I imagine best time would be early spring. There again,I doubt there is ever a bad time to visit Minsmere.

Needless to say, we...

Spent a lovely day today at Minsmere, however experience was sadly sullied by our welcome to the centre.

We were ‘greeted’ by man who took great pleasure in taking our guest pass off us and explaining that they should only be single use. This may be true, however we regularly go to many other RSPB centres where this is overlooked as given you can contribute as much as you like to pay for your membership if really doesn’t make any difference whether you use a guest pass or regular! We were happy to hand the pass over as all we need to do is add an extra name to the membership. Nevertheless, it could have been more graciously managed. This interaction was not followed up with any actual introduction to the centre or information about the walks. This is very uncharacteristic of RSPB as staff/volunteers are usually very passionate about their local area and want to show off the best routes. The couple who arrived afterwards appeared similarly put out by the lack of welcome as without any direction or map being provided there was no information available about the different routes and how long they were. Thankfully shop staff were much more accommodating and did provide a map.

By the time we got back to the centre after our walk there was a tent outside with the usual friendly staff/volunteers who did welcome us and asked if we’d had...