Pretty great

Last Sunday I got a phone call late in the afternoon from Paul Lewis at Maple Lodge. We had a rare bird present, a great white egret. This is a first for the reserve and no more than 5 years ago would have created quite a stir, if not nationally, then at least locally. Over the past few years though they have colonised the south of England, with breeding colonies in double figures now being seen in the Somerset levels. Still, a nice bird but a stinking cold and work got in the way so I couldn't get down there till this morning. It had been showing every day from Long Hedge hide so I was hopeful it would still be there.
I got into the hide about 8, with nobody else around. There were lots of gulls and ducks mooching around and at first I couldn't see the egret. Then after a minute or so I spotted a large white shape emerging from a patch of reeds on the far side of the lake. Unmistakeable from its size, clearly a GWE!

That is it roughly in the middle of the picture, a slightly larger white blob. It was some distance away and even with my big lens and a converter on it was still small in the frame. Still, the light was gradually getting better and it would be out in the sun if it ever came out.
Soon Keith Pursall the chairperson of the reserve joined me and we spent a very pleasant 90 minutes watching it as it fed and squabbled with other residents.

The gulls were very interested in it, trying to steal anything it caught and perhaps looking for small fry, disturbed as it wandered along the muddy edge.

There seemed at times to be a stand off between it and the resident grey heron. They never really squabbled but they would do a strange parallel walk, like two red deer stags seeing who was the strongest.
What it was mainly interested in though was getting some breakfast in the form of small fish. It was reasonably successful and, as well as some small ones which we couldn't see it did catch at least two decent sized fish whilst we were watching it.

Disappointingly it never seemed to want to move away from the far bank and come any closer though. It did fly around a short distance but only to get to another fishing spot close by or more lily to get away from its rival the heron.

We spent most of the time watching its antics, but theref were a few other stars around, especially the shovelers and teal which are coming nicely out of their eclipse plumage.

Wonder how long it will hang around. With the water levels at the lodge dropping for some unknown reason the fishing should get easier and easier for it.