EGRETS

20/03/10

upton warren

a dunlin had been presant earlier in the day and as it was one of the first to go through i wanted to 'get it'.

the constant showers all day 'should have kept it down'

2 bullfinch were heard in the garden at earlswood, and 3 mallard kept doing the 'red arrows' over the garden.

so then to upton

a check in the north moors had 2 teal and 2 shoveler

east hide

4 oystercatcher were quickly evident, constantly pipeing away at each other.

but the main interest was this:

2 LITTLE EGRETS on the moors pool. i have only ever seen 2 little egrets in one day before, so well chuffed, (and i have had 4 cattle egret in 1 day!!!!!!), the birds were initially right next to each other in amy's marsh, but quickly(quicker than i can open the window) moved away from each other, preventing me to get a shot of them both, later one flew onto the river, and a lot later the other egret joined it, although they often took flight and landed a bit further downstream. then both took flight and landed in the south west marsh

the snipe were around the islands again(18) and a pair of shelduck were moaping around the islands, small numbers of ducks remained, shovler,teal,pochard,tufted duck. but there did seem to be a lot of GC grebes. after quite a bit of time, we headed for the flashes(dunlin-less, smartin-less)

the 4 AVOCET were quickly located, and filmed, the LRP couldent be picked out in the dying light, a good load of lapwing and BHG's on the flashes,

2 gadwall (m+f) were swimming around by the posts in the water.

MB