I like your comment about the Little Egret. Like you, the first one I saw was amazing and so memorable. Not they're everywhere. Other birds have also crept up on us. I didn't see a buzzard until the 2000s and on my regular train trips to London would avidly stare out the window hoping to see one. Now they are everywhere, there is a resident pair in my neighbourhood who successfully raised a chick last year. Collared Doves are another one. Marvellous.
I noticed on my daily walk round the cricket pitch on a particularly cold and wet morning the other day that the usual army of Seagulls and Magpies were nowhere to be seen (and yes I said cricket pitch, I didn't mean Brighton v Newcastle United). Was it just too bloomin cold for them? And presumably harder to tap the ground for breakfast?
Little egret. Radipole Lake, March 1995. I think we went there with it as our target bird. Titchwell yesterday: at least four, commonplace birds now. Watching populations change is both a grief and a joy from a lifetime of birding.
I like your comment about the Little Egret. Like you, the first one I saw was amazing and so memorable. Not they're everywhere. Other birds have also crept up on us. I didn't see a buzzard until the 2000s and on my regular train trips to London would avidly stare out the window hoping to see one. Now they are everywhere, there is a resident pair in my neighbourhood who successfully raised a chick last year. Collared Doves are another one. Marvellous.
Struwwelpeter trees and Persil-plumaged foot stirrers. Love it.
I noticed on my daily walk round the cricket pitch on a particularly cold and wet morning the other day that the usual army of Seagulls and Magpies were nowhere to be seen (and yes I said cricket pitch, I didn't mean Brighton v Newcastle United). Was it just too bloomin cold for them? And presumably harder to tap the ground for breakfast?
Little egret. Radipole Lake, March 1995. I think we went there with it as our target bird. Titchwell yesterday: at least four, commonplace birds now. Watching populations change is both a grief and a joy from a lifetime of birding.