Day 3 - Ham Wall - Catcott Low - Greylake - Brdigewater Bay at Steart
One of the six Great White Egrets seen recently at Ham Wall nature reserve
The day started off windy, dull and overcast and finished off windy, bright but very cold. We left the hotel at 7am to visit Ham Wall so that we could watch the Great White Egrets leave their roost. Sure enough we found them in the reeds, looking from the blinds over the smaller lagoon. Five of them rose from the reeds as it got light and disappeared behind us only to return and settle behind the reedbed in the distance ahead of us.
We decided to walk round and try to relocate them and in doing so we put ourselves in a great open position whereby we could see thousands of starlings as they left their roost in Shapwick and headed off for their feeding grounds. They flew right over us in their thousands it was another great spectacle and an unexpected one. Other birds of note were a single sighting of a flying Water Rail, several Little Egrets, Common Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and all the usual ducks.
After breakfast we set off for Catcott Nature Reserve where we spent sometime looking for Bullfinches but found none, we did see good numbers of Pintail, Wigeon, lapwing and Mute Swans.
A group of Snipe trying to get some sleep at Greylake
Next we stopped at Greylake, one of the RSPB's newest reserve, it consists of a large expanse of flooded meadow with ditches and open lagoons. It was covered with Teal and Wigeon. The group got very excited about seeing Common Snipe at very close quarters from the reserves' only hide.
It began to rain as we walked back to the car park which cut short our search for the released Common Cranes. We parked once and got out of the bus to scan the meadows of King Sedgemoor finding lots of thrushes, Lapwings, Mute Swans and Roe Deer, but no Cranes.
Lastly we drove to Steart to look for waders and sea-birds in Bridgewater Bay, it had brightened up but the wind made it feel very cold. We walked through the village and out to the hides finding our first Greenfinches and Skylarks along the way. From the 'Tower' hide we located Ring Plover, Curlew, Grey Plover, Dunlin, Redshank, Knot and Great Black-backed Gull. A Peregrine sitting on the ground was a nice find. At the hide on Steart Point we found a female Merlin and had much closer views of the waders.
Our journey back to the car park produced a few sightings, a close flock of 7 Curlews was probably the best, some of the group found our first Common Kestrel of the trip, incredible that such a common bird is now getting harder to find.
It was time to go, the tour was over, it had flown by so quickly. We made our way back to Yeovil seeing several Kestrels during the journey! The group departed on the train to London and I took the bus back to the hire company.
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