Wednesday 7th October

Firstly, I set up my winter feeding station yesterday and within 5 minutes I had two Nuthatch stealing all the nuts! I didn’t see 1 last year, strange! But better was to follow, a Little Egret flew over the house at about 5.30pm only the second I have seen the other was a few years back and was closer to Ladywalk than my place.

I am lazily trying to beat my rather modest years best total of 240, after Shetland I am three species short, so with a potential new species for the year at Middleton Lakes RSPB in the form of a Great White Egret I headed out after dropping Joy off at work. There was a Siskin on the feeders there and I played it cool checking out the southern meadows first where I saw 5 Little Egret together, there was also Chiffchaff and three Swallow. I arrived at Jubilee Wetland at the same time as a work party, so I moved on – as did most of the birds. There was no sign of any GWE and the north pit didn’t look promising as it is rather overgrown, great for birds but not for bird watching.

I had a pleasant morning and on my way back there was a Spotted Flycatcher near the first bench which was showing really well.

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

I did a few hours gardening later finding out that Bittern and the Great White Egret had both been seen so I decided to go back before dark to have another look. Joy decided to come with me and we made our way out towards Jubilee Wetland. There was no sign of the GWE but a Ruff flew in and landed in front of us. We checked out the other side of the river – Dosthill Pits, I was surprised just how much this area has changed, and not for the better.

With no sign of the bird here so we checked out North Pit, I had just about given up when the Great White Egret flew over the hide and dropped down onto one of the small pools behind the bund. As we made our way around the bird took flight and headed south towards Kingsbury Water Park.