Cattle Egrets

Haven't been around here much on this lovely and still day, so my patch news for today includes nothing better than a lone male Common Scoter feeding close inshore at Seaton Hole late this morning. Pity it wasn't an Eider!

Yesterday afternoon it was nice to see the five Cattle Egrets still with us. One was feeding with two Little Egrets and the cattle alongside Cowhayne Lane, Colyford...

With four huddled together at Colcombe Farm, Colyton about five minutes later...

All the Egrets here took flight after half an hour or so, and one landed in a field close to where I was parked on Lion's Hill Close. Just a pity my camera decided to focus on the grass in front of the bird and not the bird, I wish I had flicked over to manual focus...

Found it!

My first attempt at finding where the Cattle Egret is spending the daytime began at 07:30 this morning.  At 07:41 it flew out of roost in Axmouth, but it was still so dark and it flew upriver so surprisingly quickly that my plan of following it north just didn't work.

So this afternoon I drove around looking for cattle, and from a distance saw a bunch of egrets drop in near a farm in Colyton.  I soon realised it was the farm where the three Cattle Egret were back in January 2009, and a closer look showed these egrets to be 13 Little and the Cattle. Gotcha!

It's Colcombe Farm, but please don't drive down the farm track. View the egrets from the Colyton to Shute road. There's a bench on the left just after turning on to the Shute road from the Colyton to Whitford road, just before the upper track down to the farm and virtually opposite a lay-by.

I'd had a good morning as well. Was really pleased to see the Yellow-browed Warbler, Tufted Duck and Grey Plover all still waiting patiently for Jan 1st. And a wander around Colyford WTW showed there has been a sudden explosion in Chiffchaff numbers, with at least 45 feeding along the northern edge of the WTW and around the neighboring fields. 

Who said December was a quiet month?