WHITLINGHAM: Lots of Little Egrets and a new psyllid

19th February 2023

Highlight of the February WeBS count was seeing 9 Little Egrets, a new record count for me. There were three roosting on the Little Broad plus one active bird, then another four roosting on the Great Broad with another one further along. A redhead Goosander was also of note, and a Coal Tit was singing alongside the path. I also got amazingly close up views of an Otter, having noticed it a few feet away before it saw me, and managed to find my first Spanioneura fonscolombii, a psyllid associated with Box.

WHITLINGHAM: Frosty first WeBS count of the year

20th January 2019

The morning of the first WeBS count of the year was a very cold one, necessitating the clearing of ice from both sides of the windscreen before setting off. Upon arrival there had been a hoar frost, with all of the vegetation coated in ice crystals. I allowed myself a few minutes to appreciate the landscape and the frosted umbellifers before continuing on to start my count.

Much of the Little Broad was frozen, but my attention was drawn to the trees in the corner where three Little Egrets had presumably roosted overnight and were chasing each other around in the reeds. A Kingfisher perched up behind the egrets and a male Shoveler circled round looking for some open water to land.

Moving across to the Great Broad it was evident that there had been a large influx of Gadwall due to the cold weather, with nearly 400 present. Gary had done a count the previous day and there had only been 165, so this was a large increase. Seven Goldeneye was a high count for me, although one away from the site high of eight that was equalled this winter. Eight Grey Herons was also notable, particularly as they were all spread out across about 100m of broad edge from the island and just east.

The site still looked nice but was now much busier - I was overtaken by a 'walking for health' group, before passing a Nordic walkers group. Ironically several of the latter did go ahead of me, but only because they apparently couldn't hear the leader whistling and calling them back, which I found mildly amusing as a parallel with the amount of not-particularly-under-control dogs around. Having seen few passerines on my first visit of the year I added a few more today including Siskin, but didn't see any Redpolls or the Brambling seen previously.

THORPE MARSH: Little Egret

1st March 2014

Since moving house in the autumn Thorpe Marsh is further to walk, so it had been a while since I last visited. I had heard that a couple of Jack Snipe had been seen there in the week, so I headed down more in hope than expectation. As I crossed the railway line a Song Thrush was singing, an embarrassing patch year tick. Further along the path a couple of Reed Buntings were also singing, another year tick. As I reached the cattle pound I noticed a Little Egret amongst the rushes. I took some photos (this was the first time I've seen one here for any length of time, and only my third patch record). I eventually turned my attention to the scrape, scanning from different angles but not seeing any Jack Snipe.

As I went to move off the Little Egret flew into the middle of the flooded scrape, showing even better than it had before. Eventually it flew off, but only to relocate to the flooded path across the marsh. Walking slowly round I spotted a Stock Dove flying over the woods (no sign of any on the marsh itself though), and a Meadow Pipit also flew over. I stopped to look at some fungi and heard an Oystercatcher calling as it flew in to land on the spit. I scanned through the gulls hoping that Ben's Iceland Gull would relocate from Cantley, but despite a flock of gulls flying in from the direction of the sewage works I failed to see anything other than the commonest four species. Hopefully next time I'm here the Little Ringed Plovers will be back, along with the first warblers and hirundines.