The Squacco Heron at Pagham North Wall had been calling me for a couple of weeks, unable to get down due to work and hitting the big Smoke for Margie's Birthday, see post at the link for our adventures in London Town!! Today was the day!!
London Town
Fortuitously the Heron seemed settled and with positive news yesterday, I decided to head down 1st thing. Now this weather is no fun, when your part Welsh and unfit, I need to be safely indoors by 10AM, so the plan was simple get down there for 1st light, get the bird and back for breakfast, with sunrise at 5.42AM!! 😱😱😲, I set the alarm for 4.30 and was out the door 5 mins later! All was going to plan, until it turned out the A27 was shut and no one had told Google Maps!😢 A pleasant diversion along Worthing seafront was annoying but not to costly and I was on site at about 5.30, not to shabby!
I came out on to the North Wall, the Moon was magnificent, during the drive I noticed, good observational skills and even though it wasn't fully dark it was still impressive!!
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| The Moon |
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| And Again |
The Creek at the start of the Wall, held a Greenshank and a Little Egret, a Green Sandpiper shot out and flew along the channel, quite a few Redshanks, a couple of Lapwings and a couple of Wigeon the highlights among the Black-headed Gulls. The Breech Pool had 2 Black-tailed Godwits and not much else, not really a surprise as there was hardly any water in it, which wasn't a surprise either!!😏
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| Greenshank |
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| Little Egret |
I hurried along the wall, on a mission, the bushes and reedbeds were pretty quiet, hopefully everything was still snoozing and things would liven up as the sun rises. The west end of the wall is basically Egret city, I stopped counting Cattle Egrets when I got to 50 and there were a couple of Little Egrets in the roost, no sign of the Squacco though😢
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| Part of the Cattle Egret roost |
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| Cattle Egret, positively glowing in the pre-sunrise light |
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| Grey Heron (must be wondering what the hells going on in recent years, coming over here eating our Frogs!!😂 would probably vote for Egretzit given the chance😂) |
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| Cattle Egret |
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| Not just Cattle Egrets, couple of Little Egrets in the roost as well! |
I didn't dawdle heading round the corner to the area where the Squacco was known to hang out, no messing about, no suspense there it was stood in the middle of the field!!
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| First view Squacco Heron |
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| Squacco Heron |
At this point the Sun rose
Pretty impressive colours for a couple of minutes, The Heron meanwhile stood around not doing much, probably waiting for the Sun to warm things up, so I stood around taking pics of it, the advantage of waiting 2 weeks to come and see it, is that I had it all to myself, as the sun rose more it lit the bird up lovely!!
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| Glowing |
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| Fly over Cattle Egret |
In order to save my battery and memory card I decided to head on a bit to the field with the dead trees, which often gets, Wheatears and Whinchats on migration, none the I could find today, though the dirty great Peregrine Falcon sat in the dead tree may have had something to do with it!
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| Distant Peregrine Falcon (looks like a Juvenile Female) |
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| Some lovely views across the harbour, in the early morning light |
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| Nicely lit Black-headed Gull |
I headed back to the Heron, still in position it made a few moves, had a little fly around, I managed to miss most of the interesting stuff !!
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| Lifted it's foot up at this point!! Whoop!! |
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| Bit of a Preen |
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| Bit of a Skulk in the reeds |
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| But mostly just stood about |
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| Bit of a neck stretch |
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| So I turned around for a couple of seconds when I turn back this is happening!! |
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| I suspect it may be laughing at me!! |
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| and back to the standing around! |
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| Big flush of Cattle Egrets from the field behind the Heron |
I decided to go for a bit of a wander heading north from the corner of the wall, following a big hedge I found a nice mixed flock , Yellowhammers, Greenfinches and Goldfinches, with a few Chiffchaffs and Whitethroats in with em, but couldn't find any Flycatchers, bit annoying as they seem to be everywhere at the moment!!
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Common Whitethroat |
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| Greenfinch |
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| Goldfinch |
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| Yellowhammer |
I headed back to the Heron, was getting a bit hot now so grabbed a couple more pics and headed back along the wall
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| Some Heron food |
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| Still not doing a lot |
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| Chiffchaff in the bushes, were Sedge and Reed Warblers in the reed bed but couldn't get any usable pics |
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| Final pic of a very obliging, cracking looking bird! |
Along the wall, loads of Cattle Egrets in with the Cattle, clues in the name!!
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| Cattle Egret with Cow! |
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| Little Egret in the breech pool |
The reed bed here held several Sedge & Reed Warblers and I managed a couple of pics hurrah!
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| Sedge Warbler |
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| Sedge Warbler |
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| Reed Warbler |
Were a few Lapwings on the mud and the Greenshank was feeding fun to watch it pulling up worms then rushing down to the water to wash them before gobbling them down!!
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| Lapwing |
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| Sedge Warbler |
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| Greenshank feeding |
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| Hot-footing it down to the water to wash the worm |
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| Give it wash |
Final bird of the day was a nice Willow Warbler, which was in the reed bed opposite the channel, was a bugger to get a picture of, compounded by the fact that I was concentrating on it so hard I missed the Kingfisher which shot out of the reeds beneath my feet😡 got a couple of nice pics of it in the end though!
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| Willow Warbler |
That was about that, back in the car just after 8 and home just after 9 already to blooming hot!!! A cracking couple of hours though the star bird performed well, interestingly in exactly the same place as the last one I saw a couple of years ago, not sure if the perceived wisdom is that it is the same bird or not! It's a cracking looking bird and who would have guessed a few years ago that there would be more than 50 Cattle Egrets in one place in England, think there may be even more in other places!! Excellent stuff!!
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