Cattle Egret at Stodmarsh

Cattle Egret opposite Stodmarsh Court Farm.

Yesterday the 19th April i called over to Stodmarsh to try and see the Cattle Egret that has been seen near to Stodmarsh Court Farm , my initial search failed with no sign of it , i decided to have a walk around the reserve and i bumped into another birder (many thanks) who gave me the heads up on the right place to look for the Cattle Egret.

So i headed back to the area and sure enough there it was standing in the field with cattle , the Cattle Egret flew around the field on occasion and flew back to feed among the Cattle , it then flew up into a nearby tree for awhile.

Cattle Egret.

Whilst looking at the Cattle Egret a male Marsh Harrier flew overhead .

Marsh Harrier.

I then went back to the Reed bed hide on the reserve and had very close views of 2 Common Snipe and out on the rafts were 3 Common Terns which were new birds for my year list.

Common Snipe.

Common Tern (Photo taken in 2016).

I decided to head to Grove Ferry and did my usual circuit of checking 'The Ramp' (where it was pretty quite), then popping into the Feast hide which also was quite other than a couple of Bearded Tits and a very vocal Cetti's Warbler.

From here i walked around to Harrison's hide , hearing & seeing plenty of Sedge Warblers .

Sedge Warbler.

From the hide i saw a Little Egret & a Green Sandpiper was busy feeding along the muddy fringes plus 2 Lapwings were in the distance , lots of Sand Martins with smaller numbers of Swallows were hawking over the back of the pool.

Sand Martin.

I walked back along the river and another quick look from 'The Ramp' produced very little but it was great to hear the many Sedge Warblers & Chiffchaff setting up territory's.