November: Egrets

A lovely autumn weekend, just gone. Some good birds too. The highlight was the (presumed) returning Great White Egret along with several Little Egrets that looked to have settled on Kelk Beck, much like last winter.

Where exactly these egrets live in the summer is a mystery for now but given that very few spend the summer to the north then surely there is a northerly dimension to their winter 'migration' to Kelk. It's probably a safe guess that most are from colonies in the South East that disperse through autumn. There are around 1000 pairs breeding in UK. On the Humber estuary the peak counts for Little Egrets are typically in Aug-Sep. Perhaps 'ours' have spent time there recently. Some basic info here.


November 26th-27th

Mute Swan - 4
Pink-footed Goose - skein of 90 south
Wigeon - 410+ is the largest ever area count
Gadwall - 4
Teal - 200+
Mallard - 60+
Red-legged Partridge - 8
Grey Partridge - 11
Cormorant - 3
Little Egret - 6
GREAT WHITE EGRET - 1
Grey Heron - 7
Sparrowhawk - 1
Buzzard - 7
Kestrel - 5
Peregrine - 1
Golden Plover - 120 flying south
Lapwing - 75
Snipe - 12
Woodcock - 2
Green Sandpiper - 4 (2 Kelk, 2 Wansford)
Great Spotted Woodpecker - 4
Meadow Pipit - 4
Grey Wagtail - 2, possibly 3
Blackbird - 170+
Fieldfare - 360+
Song Thrush - 15+
Redwing - 130+
Mistle Thrush - 5
Coal Tit - 3
Jay - 2
Tree Sparrow - 30+
Brambling - 3
Reed Bunting - 11+

Here's another snap of the big egret. So much of them being only found in massive reedbed reserves and estuaries!

And one of the little uns. Five took up residence last winter and left in early March. Hopefully that will be repeated. It's still less than a decade since I saw my first one in the area.

Two year ticks...

108 Great White Egret
109 Brambling