Somerset - Sun 3 Mar

A mini-tour of Somerset today between family commitments and it started off with a good look around the churchyard at Milborne Port where I failed to find any Hawfinches, despite them being reported earlier in the day. I gave it a fair amount of time but didn't want to waste time so headed off to Wet Moor.

When I arrived I could see a distant herd of swans, but couldn't locate the ones I was looking for, this is when I started hoping it wasn't going to be one of those days! Plenty of wildfowl about and the now expected Great White Egrets and Cattle Egrets. Then I had some success, on the fourth or fifth scan of the distant swans I picked out one of the adult Bewick's Swans, at last!

Leaving Wet Moor I then drove to Monkton Heathfield to look for a Rosy Starling that had been found a few days earlier. I had to wait for a little while, but eventually I got some really good views of the bird, and even managed a record shot (taken directly with my phone rather than a digi-scoped effort).

After sorting out some family stuff, I then headed back to the Somerset Levels and made for Ham Wall where I parked up and walked out to Noah's Hide on the Shapwick side. After a bit of searching I got my third species of swan for the day, with three Whooper Swans eventually showing themselves. Amongst teh gathered ducks I also picked out a female Goldeneye.

I then walked back to Ham Wall and had a good look from the first viewpoint where two Glossy Ibis had been present earlier in the day, but I drew a blank with them. There were a couple of Bitterns "booming", but they failed to show themselves, and a couple of Marsh Harriers were patrolling the area. As I left there were good numbers of Starlings arriving to roost, but I didn't hang around for the murmuration.