3 Egret Day at Chew Valley Lake

If I told you 10 years ago that I'd counted 29 Great White Egrets this morning, you might have raised your eyebrows and probably assumed they were Littles. Even then, there was a time not too long before that when 29 Littles would have raised some eyebrows. And yet I really did see 29 Great White Egrets, 11 Little Egrets and 3 Cattle Egrets today! And that's not even close to a record count, with around 50 Great Whites currently on the lake. I'm sure numbers like these aren't especially impressive for seasoned Somerset birders, but for me the novelty hasn't worn off!

I have my car with me at uni in Bath this year, and today was the first day I got a chance to go birding. I decided to go to Chew Valley Lake. It's a site I've heard a lot about but never visited before. First stop was the roadside at Herriot's Bridge, where I was greeted immediately by the Great White Egrets. 21 Pintail were on Herriot's Pool, and large numbers of Pochard, Tufted Duck, Shoveler and Gadwall were on the lake. 

When I saw my first Great White Egrets in the Forest D'Orient in France when I was 12, I thought they were such incredible, exotic birds. It's difficult to believe that they can now be so common just 10 miles away from me!

In recent days, a Lesser Yellowlegs has been about, showing intermittently between Stratford Hide and Herriot's Bridge but it has apparently been very elusive. I searched in vain for it from the bridge, but did pick out a Grey Plover on the far shore of the lake and a Dunlin which fed alongside it. A Grey Wagtail landed on the stone edge of the pool and there was evidence of migration overhead, with Redwing, Skylark and Meadow Pipit passing over.

A feeding frenzy of gulls began on the far shore. Though the cause of it wasn't clear, Great White and Little Egrets joined the flock of Black-headed Gulls which were feeding over the water and soon other gulls joined - I picked up Lesser-Black Backed, Herring, Common and Great-Black Backed Gulls but best of all, both Yellow-legged and Mediterranean Gull! After about an hour, just as I was about to leave, 3 Redpoll flew south.

I moved onto the west side of the lake and took a drive down Stratford Lane, in order to search the cattle fields for my main target. It paid off and I spotted 3 Cattle Egrets flying into the final field before the car park for Stratford Hide. A UK tick! They showed superbly right alongside the road - a perfect way to get this long overdue lifer. While watching the egrets, a couple of Siskin flew over and a Goldcrest and 2 Chiffchaffs moved through with a flock of Long-tailed Tits.

Moving onto Heron's Green, I added lots more birds to the day list. From the lay-by, I saw a distant Spotted Redshank, 3 Green Sandpiper, 2 Snipe, a fantastic female Scaup, Stonechat and a Kingfisher. Also another Yellow-legged Gull, this one much closer than the first.

Time was getting on, but I wanted to have one more look for the Lesser Yellowlegs at Herriot's Bridge as it was on the way home. Unfortunately, there was no sign, but I got the impression I could have waited several hours and never seen it. A nice consolation were my first 2 Goldeneye of the autumn in amongst the raft of Tufted Ducks.

The morning ended on an impressive 65 species in just a couple of hours. I'll certainly be back.