The biggest egret of my life.....

.....or 'its better to egret something you have done than egret something you have not done'.

I must admit I was a bit reluctant at first when Max suggested the idea of twitching the Great White Egret at Ellemere, Shropshire yesterday. Not that I didn't want to see one of course, but with twitching, I prefer to stay within the catchment area of WMBC wherever possible. Still Egretta Alba was something new to see and it was somewhere new to go, so I warmed to the idea and off we went.

About an hour and 15 minutes later we'd arrived at Ellesmere and were walking up to The Mere where the bird had been seen. The only bother was finding the small jetty to view the bird from - once you found that you couldn't miss the egret even though it was at the far side of The Mere; the Great White Egret (lifer 237) was perching on waterside branches with a load of Cormorants and a massive beast it was too.

We had a good look and even managed a few digi-scoped record shots. An example of which below. the bird had three rings on its knees, orange, yellow and a pale greenish one. Too far away to read, but I'll have to try to find out what this means . A nice bird to see, so no egrets (sorry - I'll stop now!).

Not much else to see in the way of birdlife on The Mere, so we had a nice honeycombe ice cream from the cafe and had a look at the butterflies. Took a few pics, but not too pleased with the results; the sun was too bright and they have over-exposed. Butterflies seen have been ID'd as Painted Lady, Green Veined White and Meadow Brown, like the one below who looks like he got his wings jammed in the office shredder. Also Brown Hawker dragonfly.

We then went to nearby Wood Lane NR which is a selection of quarry pools and small fishing pools. On arrival there was a sign stating that it was £7 for a day permit, which we pretended not to see, but in light of this we could only stay very briefly. From what we saw yesterday, I would have been very disapointed to be parted with seven quid, but I'm sure it has its moments, same as anywhere else. The best we could come up with here was a Green Woodpecker and a Goldcrest.

It was miserable, dank and drizzly at Upton Warren this morning. On the Flashes at least 8 Green Sandpipers, 2 Common Sandpiper, 7 Snipe, 2 Shelduck, Teal, Shoveler, Gadwall, Kingfisher and Buzzard.

The Little Owl was back on the barn roof and we saw a Stock Dove narrowly escape the hunting Peregrine by the masts, in fact it was that close that the Peregrine's claws grazed the feathers on the dove's back!

On to the Moors Pool where a Black Tern was present, always nice to see. Sadly we'd missed a juvenille Arctic Tern by about half an hour. One Wigeon was noted and another Kingfisher.