I had received a text message from a fellow Sutton Bingham birder first thing this morning, Nick Smith had seen a possible Purple Heron at the southern end of the reservoir but had not had been able to 100% clinch the ID. So on my way home I stopped off and made straight for the southern end and set up my scope. A couple of Little Egrets were present and two Mandarin and a Grey Wagtail were also seen.
As I scanned across the Purple Heron suddenly flew across my field of view...excellent. It sat at the water's edge for about fifteen minutes but was frustratingly out of sight before again taking to the air and after a brilliant fly aroud settled in to the willows and out of site.
So the next ten minutes were filled with frantic phone calls to get the news out so that others could get a chance to enjoy this national rarity, and hopefully they will but I couldn't hang around as I had to leave at 6.00pm to make sure I was home for dinner!
UK list for 2011 now at 235 species.
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