GREAT WHITE EGRET!!!!!!!

3/06/10

the lawrenny area and estury. pembrokeshire

after tim jones had informed me of a great egret that had been found not far from where i was staying i had to go for it.

what i was hopeing would be an easy tick turned into a major search of the surrounding estury.

we first checked where the bird had been found at cresswell key, about 30-40 mins of no sign and we moved over to carew castle, where a pair of shelduck were resting but still nothing on the egret.

another stop at cresswell failed again so with the day drawing to an end, we decided to drop into lawrenny picnic area,

on the enterance road we saw a gap from where a lot of the estury was viewable and decided on the way back out we would have a scan from here, at the picnic site a load of powerboats were on the water so no egret here.

so the last shot of the day:

stopping at the vantage point we stopped and i got my scope out, loads of shelduck and GBBG, i panned the edges and found a WHIMBREL probing the soft mud, and then an egret!!!!

the little egret was feeding with the whimbrel and was joined by another bird later, so as a last hope i scanned the far end of the estury, and there standing out like the sun in the sky, the GREAT WHITE EGRET,

the bird was so distant i only took 1 confimation shot with my camera on full zoom through my scope

the evening was spent on a high in the pub (as was every night really :-D).

5/06/10

the journey back home was more productive for raptors with my buzzard theriy being trown out the window with 23 noted ( including a single flock of 10!!!! on a single thermal)

a low 13 red kite were counted, but they did show slightly better then on the way there.

MB