Cattle Egret at Iken

Cattle Egret at Iken

We set off this morning in the general direction of Suffolk so M25/A12 and with the journey taking less time than planned I took the Jims to Christchurch Park Ipswich to kill some time. We enjoyed good views of a Tawny Owl sitting in an old Oak in the half light of a grey morning before taking in decent views of four Goosander and a few Mandarin on the park pools. I'd like to return here with the camera on a brighter day.

Tawny Owl

Next stop was Alton Water where we quickly located two Black-necked Grebe and went off to search for Red-necked Grebe. Sadly the Red-neck gave us the slip but we did find another Black-necked and a Great Northern Diver. The waters also held large numbers of Great-crested Grebe but little else of note.

Black-necked Grebe

We moved on driving another 25miles to Iken in search of Cattle Egret where after a short scan of the fields around Sandy Lane we eventually found the target in the farm itself feeding well amongst the cattle. We enjoyed watching it feed for a while from the entrance track to the farm until it was flushed as the farmer walked by. As we drove out we found the bird again on a small pool at the end of Sandy Lane and it would have been rude not to grab another couple of images with the water adding to the picture.

Cattle and Egret

Cattle Egret

Pheasant

Goosander

Our last stop was at North Warren and from the new raised screen we found the four Spoonbill for another year tick.

Spoonbill at North Warren

Year list is now 147