Wednesday 8 August 2012

Wow !! A Life Tick.

Mid morning on Tuesday I got a life tick.Mind you it was about time as I hadn't had one for a long time now.

Thanks very much to my good friend Pete Walkden I had some excellent directions to a site at Grimley in Worcestershire where a Great White Egret had been seen for a couple of days now.I was very keen to see one because although I'd been birding for a few years now I'd never seen one and all my friends had.

Got to the site at just after 11.00AM and found both the car park spots empty.I had the place to myself.I went through the first gate and walked the few metres to the second gate where you can scan down to the flooded gravel pits/meadows way below.Straight away I saw a large white bird way off in the distance.Could it still be here?






I raced back to the car and grabbed the bins.Yes it was the GWE.A life tick !!!!!! That was quick I saw it within 10 seconds of getting there.Never done that before.

On the picture front I didn't do so well.It stayed way off in the distance not getting closer than 200 metres at best but for once I wasn't bothered I was just pleased to get a tick.Here are a couple of distant shots.









What struck me was what a big bird it was.You can see from these shots how big it was when next to other birds.









I even managed some distant flight shots.












A big bonus was when a Hobby suddenly showed up and started hawking for dragonflies.I managed my best Hobby shots of the year which isn't saying much as I've done very poorly with these chaps this year.




















2 comments:

Pete Walkden said...

Glad you caught up with it Max. And a terrific set of hobby shots to accompany the lifer. :-)

Max Silverman said...

Cheers Pete.Thanks for the tip.