THE EGRET SHOW

The little egrets gathered at their high tide roost in the trees by the country park pond are a spectacle to behold especially when they take to the air such as these 25 egrets did on Tuesday 9th. Eighty birds in the trees was a site record. Three grey herons were also in the trees with the egrets.

More little egrets appeared at the roost on Wednesday 10th when at least 95 birds were counted in the willow trees. There is a lot of squawking and bickering going on during the roost and it's not a peaceful spot for an egret to snooze while the high tide covers their feeding grounds on the nearby mudflats.

The kingfisher was heard a couple of times during the day at the pond and was finally seen by Steve Entwistle after several visits over the last month, on Wednesday evening.

There was a surprise visit to the park pools of an adult little stint on Tuesday afternoon. It fed along one of the muddy edges in close proximity to the large redshank roost of 250 birds. The stint didn't stay long and soon disappeared when the redshank flew back to the mudflats. It's the first little stint on the fields for over 15 years.

Good numbers of redshank gathered for the high tide roost in the fields on Wednesday with 450+ birds counted. Only 10 black-tailed godwits, 20 lapwing, 50 teal, 5 wigeon and one snipe. Ten snipe flew off the marshy area beside the pools on Monday afternoon. Two greenshank could be heard calling from the mudflats on Wednesday afternoon.
Andy Field saw three wheatears on his walk to the Point on Wednesday.
A little owl perched on a telegraph post opposite the East Mersea shop at dusk on Wednesday.

On Tuesday a spotted flycatcher was seen near the trees at the park pond and perched on the kestrel tree to flycatch from. The first whinchat of the autumn at the park was on the clifftop with a wheatear, later moving to the fields. Three other wheatears were seen on the Point as were 30 linnets. The kingfisher flew over the seawall and along the dyke near the Golfhouse.

An adder was seen at the park enjoying the sunshine on Tuesday morning. Butterflies seen on the wing have included speckled wood, small heath, small white and red admiral.

Spent the last hour of Tuesday evening walking the Pyefleet seawall near Reeveshall. The large pool here has been gradually drying up through the summer with the only two birds seen during the visit were two green sandpipers. Ten yellow wagtails flew away from the cattle to their roost and a sparrowhawk was chased away by some crows.

Along the Pyefleet were noted common sandpiper, greenshank, 50 avocets and 100 black-tailed godwits. Five marsh harriers were seen flying about over the Langenhoe marshes.

A muntjac deer was glimpsed in the car headlights at the north end of Shop Lane as night fell.

Forty moths were in the trap after Tuesday night's session with all the familiar faces on show again such as this common snout pictured above. Some of the other moths noted were large yellow underwing, square spot rustic, flounced rustic, setaceous hebrew character, brimstone and single dotted wave.