Saturday 18 October 2014

Bittern sweet

Bittern sweet
We had an early morning walk around Branton Ponds today to see if the Slavonian Grebe was still there. Whilst searching the east pond we moved down to an area of Bullrushes, no sign of the grebe but much to our astonishment a Bittern flew up in front of us and proceeded to flap awkwardly around the pond chased by a group of Black Headed Gulls, it eventually flew over trees in the direction of the west pond and was lost from sight. We had no further views but it may have landed in a dense area of reeds at the far end or it may have just kept on going, whatever happened to it this is yet another new bird for the ponds and the second new one in a week.
From the ponds we went on an unusual twitch in the form of a Death's Head Hawkmoth at Howick village hall, provided by Stewart Sexton and much appreciated by the assembled crowd.
This is all just too much to take in,I shall have to go and have a lie down in a darkened room, and as a footnote the Slav was seen again on the east pond later this morning.

No comments:

Post a Comment