More (proper) Great White Egret Pictures

I was very kindly sent these pictures of the Great White Egret (at Wheldrake Ings from Pool hide) by York Birder Robert Dawson (thank you) who was the only person down in the hide with me when the bird was showing this morning and as it flew off came within range of his camera! The photos below are reproduced with Roberts permission:

Great White Egret

Finally caught up with the Wheldrake Ings Great White Egret this morning. Was sat out in the open for a while before flying off.

There was no sign of it when I was there last night between 1800-2000 but there was 1 Little Egret, 8 Green Sandpiper, 1 Greenshank, 2 Ruff, 6 Snipe, 1 Water Rail, 1 Common Tern and about 8 Grey Heron.

This morning 0820-0830 there was 1 Great White Egret, 1 Little Egret, 6 Grey Heron, 2 Green Sandpiper, 2 Ruff and 3 Snipe. I didn't hang around so highly likely there was other waders about but I got what I wanted and then had to get to work!

A few record shots off my phone below as too far away for camera:

It's been a long time coming...

...I finally went birding!

Most of the summer has been taken up by writing reports of one sort or another. I've been engrossed in the cricket and have done a little planning for my rapidly approaching birding trip to Thailand (4 months to go) but in all honesty I've just been too busy to blog. No great loss!

I have actually done a bit of birding locally (had a Red Kite almost visible from my house) and a bit further afield but most of it has involved Schedule 1 birds at secret locations so I can't talk about those here! As Autumn is starting to get going I thought I'd try and get a bit more active, we'll see....

Today I went to Wheldrake Ings, was overcast but still fairly mild. Highlights included 8 Green Sandpiper, 1 Ruff, 4 Snipe and 33 Lapwing. A few ducks but they were all in their 'brown-look' so I didn't really bother with them and a few gulls flew over with lots of gaps in their wings, ugly, so again ignored those. Did see a Grey Heron catch a foot long Pike wash it, then swallow it whole, and still alive! Quite impressive.

I called in to Bank Island, the Butterfly Garden there last week was spectacular, most of the plants have gone over now but there was quite a few 'White's' still knocking about, and a Little Egret on the pool too.

That was about it, the Vulcan flew over and flushed everything a couple of times before it cleared off.

The only other thing was Swift, noticeable by their absence in the LDV today...

From a snowy LDV

Well, it wasn't that bad really but a light covering of snow in the area.

As I drove home from York this afternoon I grabbed 5 minutes at each of Bank Island and Thorganby viewing platform.  Both were fairly quiet though a flock of c.45 Snipe were doing circuits of the reserve and there was a good 200+ Fieldfare around. Didn't see anything unusual-looking on the water.

Thorganby was fairly quiet, though the Barn Owl was showing well again in front of the platform. Lots of Wigeon and at least 8 Shelduck visible, but again nothing really interesting. In fairness if there was, I may have missed it given the brevity of my check! I was hoping for a drake Smew sat right in front of the platform! But then I don't seem to have Tims luck!

I had a quick look off Bubwith Bridge again and this area was heaving, looking forward to the weekend when I can hopefully get some time to carefully work through all the Teal and Wigeon. There must have been 2.5/3x the number of each of these present today than my counts on Saturday, presumably a combination of some frozen areas and a reduction in water levels throughout the valley. Surely there's got to be a Green-winged Teal or American Wigeon here.... I have had both here in the past.... There was at least 6 male Pintail, several male Shoveler, more Shelduck, Pocahrd, Tufted Duck etc (again due to the quick scan these are likely to be under-estimations as I was just looking for the obvious i.e. not females!). There was a couple of Whooper and Mute Swans and a good number of Lapwing, Golden Plover, Dunlin, Ruff, Snipe and over 20 Redshank again (feeding, not roosting this time).

I hear that the 2nd winter Iceland Gull that Tim found last Saturday at Rufforth has been seen again today! That may take up some/all of my time at the weekend! I hope it's more co-operative this time round!

I didn't get any pictures today for obvious reasons, so here's one from the other day.

Barn Owl from before the time of continuous rain...