July 9th Strumpshaw Fen

Great White Egret

As I had somewhere else I had to go this Wednesday, I decided to help out at Strumpshaw today instead. It was a dull, overcast day and provided very little on the insect front. The bird front, however, was pretty decent. I ended up visiting Tower Hide during my pre-shift walk today. Here, I joined a few regulars who were watching a great white egret. It was wading through the water searching for its next fishy meal alongside some grey herons. The egret stood out like a sore thumb with its bright white plumage and yellow bill. Also seen from this hide were common terns, shovelers with near fully grown ducklings and I was told that a bittern had shown up before I had arrived. Typical! I also happened to see a barn owl this morning while walking to the reserve.

Kingfisher

Kingfishers were extremely active from Reception Hide this morning. Every few minutes or so, one would fly over to perch somewhere around the broad. Sometimes there were two of them showing up at once. They definitely made several visitors happy on a day in which wasn't good for their main reason of coming to the reserve; swallowtails. Other than the kingfishers, I also heard some bearded tits (that happened to fly passed the hide without me noticing) and saw marsh harriers, swallows and house martins, swifts and a cormorant.