Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: Great-white Egret At Last!........Saturday 3rd November 2018.

Wednesday 7 November 2018

Great-white Egret At Last!........Saturday 3rd November 2018.

A planned visit today to the local patch,certainly paid dividends again,with another 4 species added to the year list,with one of those being a first for the patch also,this is what i saw over the six and a half hours on site.
I started in usual fashion at Winter's Pond for first light and a quick cursory scan revealed very little on the pit.
A few minutes later after getting the layers on and i was off.A few scans of the pit revealed 5 Little Grebe still,8 Teal,7 Shoveler,3 Black-tailed Godwit and some new arrivals,4 Goldeneye.The latter showed really closely,but the early morning light was garbage,so i didn't even bother trying to take any pics.
A quick look around the bushes bordering the river bank saw a couple of Goldcrest,3 Redwing and a confiding flock of 13 Long-tailed Tit which are always a joy to see.
As i passed Winter's by and began to head towards the Skitter,the familiar 'Eeep' of Brambling was heard,as three birds rested in a Hawthorn along the bank side,but as soon as they saw me they were off and flew towards Winter's.Finally i had added this species to my patch year list,with birds being seen all over the place locally.
As i reached the Skitter,a single Knot was feeding on it's own and i decided to walk around the freshwater pools to see if any Water Pipits had arrived yet.As i approached the first of the pools a female Stonechat showed really nicely,then 2 Water Pipits flushed from virtually the same area and i tried to get some flight shots,but it wasn't easy.Also along the shore here were a couple of Rock Pipits which offered a great comparison with the Wipits and a very nice find in the form of 3 Twite.The Twite were quite flighty and i had to try and get as close as i could without flushing them to try and get a few pics,but they eventually flew again and along the shore for several hundred yards before dropping back down again.This latter sighting was a really nice surprise,as they are always a lovely bird to see,particularly inland along the Estuary.
Between the Skitter and Dawson City it was fairly quiet apart from a decent sized flock of about 800-1000 Pinks feeding on a grass pasture,30 Fieldfare and 3 Siskin which flew west.
Some prolonged scanning of the large sandbank in front of Dawson,saw 160 Mallard,50 Teal,190 Dunlin,6 Ringed and a single Grey Plover.A redhead Red-breasted Merganser flew east along the tide edge here also.
As i reached the reserve itself,i turned around to see a Great-white Egret as it flew over my head and over the saltmarsh and out across the Humber heading north east.This bird was later seen flying south at Spurn Point and constitutes the first record for my patch,certainly a long expected one as well.
As i headed back towards East Halton through Goxhill Marsh and along Skitter Road i added 2 Common Buzzard and a couple of Grey Herons to the days sightings,but little else,but i could hardly complain after what i had already seen today.
I arrived back at the car at Winter's after a good 10 mile walk today and a quick scan of the pit saw a couple of Pintail with the Mallard flock,a nice end to the day's visit i thought.
Well,as i drove home i thought to myself,what a brilliant visit again today,adding another 4 species to the patch year list,putting me on a respectable 139,1 species away of my target i had set myself for the year of 140,onwards and upwards for the final 2 months of the year.