On Feb 15, 8:09*pm, Roger Tonkin wrote:
In article , rbel says...







On Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:21:47 -0800 (PST), Dave Hill
wrote:

Comming back from the local hospital late this aftrenoon I was
surprised to see a Little Egret flying over the A 48, it must have
come off the River Neath, and was flying towards Jersey Marine.
Now that would be one for the bird feeder.
David @ the wet end of Swansea Bay

Indeed it would. *From memory the over wintering population has been
spreading northwards at quite a rate during recent years. *Our local
concentrations on the Teign and Exe estuaries in South Devon now
support populations throughout the year and it is only 60 miles as the
egret flies to Swansea. *I have seen many wading on the tidal mudflats
particularly when catching the early morning train from Newton Abbot,
but whilst we live just a couple of miles from the Teign I have never
seen any inland.

We've had a Great White Egret on Llangose lake for the last few weeks.
Not sure if it is still there. No Little Egret's though!

--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Little Egret

In recent years staff at the National Wetland Centre of Wales have
always been able to report high numbers of the small heron like bird,
the Little Egret occurring at the centre. However on an early
September evening this year, a staggering 217 of these startling white
incomers roosted at the Llanelli reserve of The Wildfowl & Wetlands
Trust (WWT).

Little Egrets were until recently, a rare visitor to the UK shores –
not even listed in some of the smaller British Bird guides! This was
once a bird of the Mediterranean coastal regions and ten years ago, as
the National Wetland Centre of Wales opened, a maximum of five had
been seen.

David