Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Cattle Egret! - 12.4.17

Cattle Egret

An after work visit to the patch proved to be very fruitful. On walking out to the viewpoint at College Lake I noticed a white bird on the left hand island. Thinking it's probably a Little I was stunned to find upon looking at it through my scope that it had an orangey bill and crown. It was a Cattle Egret! I quickly grabbed a record shot in case it flew and then ran into the centre to inform the staff of my find. A 1st for the reserve no less! Next it was to get the news out and inform the locals. Quite quickly they started to appear and get a view. It was flighty but stuck around until closing ending up on the tern raft on the far side of the reserve. It also became my first self found 3 pointer for the patchwork challenge thereby giving me 3 bonus points!Willow Warbler and 2 Little Ringed Plover also made it onto the year list.

Marsworth was my next stop. A House Martin was a year first as were the pair of Mandarin that I'd managed to walk past without seeing them. On Startops Common Tern and 3 Yellow Wagtail were also year firsts and finally a pair of Red-Crested Pochard were on Wilstone.

No comments:

Post a Comment