My afternoon off, and I headed straight for a site just to the south of Castle Cary in the hope to find some of the local population of Tree Sparrows. I parked up and walked down the Macmillan Way West for a couple of hundred metres before noticing a number of birds in a hedgerow. I quickly set up my 'scope and scanned the hedgerow finding several Chaffinches, Starlings, Redwings, a few Greenfinches and Reed Buntings, and then, at least half a dozen splendid Tree Sparrows. It was excellent to see these birds as I had not found any in my previous two visits to this site.
Mission accomplished, I hopped back in the car and drove cross-country to Street and then out to Sharpham. I parked the car and scanned the cattle field near the bridge over the drove and thought my luck was in as an egret flew in and landed near the cows. Unfortunately, it was not the bird I was after but a Little Egret. Scanning around I noticed another cattle field with several white blobs in it just up the road. Being lazy I jumped in the car and drove the half a mile up the road and again parked. As I scanned the field I counted six more Little Egrets, and then, as if from nowhere, I found the wintering Cattle Egret that I had been searching for.
With time ticking on I decided against driving up to Steart to try and find the Common Crane that had been seen up there, so instead I drove back south and stopped off at Greylake RSPB. As I got out of the car and walked towards the hide an immature Peregrine flew overhead, causing a bit of disturbance amongst the gathered Lapwings and wildfowl. A female Marsh Harrier was also quartering over the reserve. Over the next hour I failed to see much more of note so headed back to the car, seeing a Raven fly over as I walked along.
UK list for 2010 now at 147 species.
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