We started on Shapwick Heath NNR this time. Before we had
left the car park ten cattle
egret flew over heading east – a good start!
As we started down the track, we soon heard several bearded
tit calling from the nearby reedbed, despite a rapid detour we couldn’t
find them. We soon added Cetti’s
warbler, blue
tit, great
tit and long-tailed
tit. A quick look at the first reed bed gave us our first view of great
white egret chugging over the reeds and marsh
harrier were immediately evident too.
 |
| Male marsh harrier |
We reached our first pool and were soon seeing a nice
selection of waterfowl, including coot,
mute
swan, cormorant,
shoveler,
moorhen,
mallard,
gadwall,
teal,
grey
heron and little
grebe. A couple of kingfisher
were zooming around the pool and another great white egret was popping in and
out of the reads.
 |
| Coot having a good wash |
A few swallow
were zooming over on their way of South Africa for the winter.
As we worked out way along the footpath, through the woods
to the next hide we continued to pick up new species including, blackbird,
wren,
dunnock,
chaffinch,
goldfinch,
siskin,
robin
and an elusive goldcrest.
Onto the next pool where we saw a number of herring
gull, black-headed
gull, greylag
goose and great
crested grebe. Here we watched a young marsh harrier try to catch a wigeon
on the water with almost disastrous consequences. Having plunged osprey-like
into the lake it just managed to get free from the grip of the water and slink
off to hide in a bit of cover in the middle of the lake. Lesson learnt
hopefully.
After lunch we headed over onto Ham Wall RSPB.
We picked up a little
egret at the first viewing point. As well as some great views of mixed flocks
of waterfowl.
 |
| Great white egret |
At the next viewing points we had great views of snipe
and lapwing
as well as more teal, wigeon, shoveler and gadwall.
At the final hide we a marsh harrier master class from a
splendid adult male.
All-in-all a great day! (NA)
No comments:
Post a Comment