UKC

Last week, got good views of yellow wagtails and corn buntings and also heard two quail, and yesterday got great views of cattle egrets and fly over spoonbills

That cattle egret is uncanny. It's like looking in my mirror every morning.

Nice. That’s four species I’ve still to see!

I did see Tree Pipits last week (never had a positive ID in past), but the habitat and mainly song indicators helped. There were Meadow Pipits around and lots of similarities between the two, but had time to compare and separate them.

Also, if I thought Willow Warbler - Chiffchaff IDs were often hard, I was lucky to see the rare, bit of both species, the Iberian Chiffchaff. No chance of ID without those in the know being around. Interestingly, Merlin app didn’t (couldn’t?) pick up it’s song/calls.

One birder from Troon twitching, had an incredible knowledge of bird song/calls and was picking up birds all around including the I. Chiffchaff. It was mobile though fortunately in a small area but often hard to see in the trees and not helped by the overcast gloom and rain when I was there, so no photo.

Love that portrait of the cattle egret!

Nice. Got a cracking photo of a tree pipit the other month. Lovely birds. 

Aye, it’s a good photo. The hide was full of ‘toggers’ waiting for a kingfisher, none of them realised these longhorn cows were passing close to the other side of the hide with seven egrets picking up insects, frogs etc. 

They do have a look about them, more like an angry chicken. 

No photos, but a great visit out to the RSPB reserve on Rathlin Island last week - a seabird extravaganza with much love for the puffins. But star bird was just heard, not seen - a corncrake - a great reward for walking rather than taking the bus!