Friday August 4 - G W Egret panic

I was just about to head off to Aldi this afternoon when the phone rang. It was Mark Islip. Did I know there was a Great White Egret at Morton Bagot? Hell no!

I was out of the house in an instant and took ten minutes to arrive at Church Farm. I then raced across the fields to find no sign of Mark or egret at the Flash field viewing place. A quick call established that he was by the Kingfisher Pond.

Mark had seen it fly in from the north-east, and it had then ignored the flash field and landed at the edge of the tiny Kingfisher Pool where it had walked out of sight.

Mark had rung me and kindly awaited my arrival. We decided to edge along the back of the pool hoping to see it. Surely a bird that big would be obvious.

Sadly it spotted us and got up, but then landed again at the far end of the pool, again out of sight. I managed two shocking record shots.

Great White Egret

Great White Egret

We decided to circle round to try to see it from the other end. Eventually Mark, who is about 6'4", spotted it, while short-arse me couldn't see anything. It took off again and disappeared back up the other end of the pool before disappearing again. More shots were attempted, but they are even worse than the ones just shown.

We went back to where we'd started, but once again the egret spotted us before we saw it. This final shot was of it scraping over the hedge. Surely it would now be on the Flash, we thought.

Never to be seen again?

There was no further sign of it. Mike Inskip, and Matt Willmott arrived. Matt tried his charm on the farmer who owns the flash field, but to no avail. Access was denied.

A Red Kite appeared over Bannams Wood, while the Green Sandpiper count was 14, plus a juvenile Little Ringed Plover.

My gut feeling is that it is still there somewhere, but I'm tied up tomorrow, so I have to keep my fingers crossed for Sunday.