Recent sightings in Brough Park Fields Nature Reserve

WFYD volunteer Diane reported seeing a Little Egret in Brough Park Fields Nature Reserve in the first week of January 2014.

From the RSPB website, “Little Egrets... first appeared in the UK in significant numbers in 1989 and first bred in Dorset in 1996......”

In the recently published (2013) Bird Atlas 2007-11 the authors begin the page on the Little Egret thus, “The colonisation and range expansion of the Little Egret represents one of the most phenomenal shifts in abundance and distribution of any bird in Britain and Ireland over the past 20 years.”

Little Egrets are a type of heron, indeed, when they first came to breed in Britain (from Spain and France) they first established breeding colonies amongst Grey Heron heronries. Initially they were confined to the south and east coasts but now they are breeding as far north as Cumbria and Northumberland. In winter they have been seen in lowland areas as far north as the Shetland Isles.

Little Egrets have also been seen at Tittesworth Reservoir and Rudyard Lake in previous years.

Little Egret, Devon. Photo courtesy of Nilfanion taken from Wikimedia Commons

 

Also recently seen in Brough Park NR are flocks of Brambling feeding on Beech mast under Beech trees, Wigeon and Teal.