Highlight of the month was the appearance of a single great white egret on Tonford Lake, adjoining Hambrook. First reported by a riverside resident on 12th, and present at times until at least 16th, this is the 109th species to have been recorded on, over or close to the Marshes since 2012. Until recently the great white egret was a rare vagrant to the UK from southern Europe, but it has been moving steadily northwards for fifty years, its European breeding population increasing from around 150-200 in the 1970s to between 11,000 and 24,000 by 2000. In England the number of birds recorded annually has rocketed but there are still no more than about ten nesting pairs. It therefore remains to be seen if their breeding population takes off in much the same way as the little egret’s did.
Another unexpected egret story was the appearance of an amazing seven little egrets (below) in one of Hambrook’s grazed fields on 6th, when there was shallow flooding. This flock was all the more remarkable for the fact that I can go months without seeing a single one (my previous sighting was in February). While I once saw eight on the nearby Tonford Lake, this is the first time I’ve found more than four on Hambrook Marshes.
Less encouraging was the almost total absence of snipe, the first birds usually arriving in September or early October, but this year none probed the mud in Tonford Field until two appeared on 29th November. A quick glance over the fence is enough to explain this anomaly: after a summer with absolutely no grazing, due to fears about the security of the fence along the A2 embankment, there is now an extremely dense thatch of grass instead of the normal fairly short turf. Snipe may have longish legs and beaks, but they are no match for this vegetative barrier, and the birds must have simply moved to somewhere more congenial.