17th July 2016

Headed down to Ham Wall this morning. On my way to the location of the little bittern, I checked the area of water by the Avalon hide for the ibises with no luck, I only had 5 Great White Egrets, a Bittern and 3 Green Sandpipers.

This turned out to be a bad idea as I missed the little bittern by just a few minutes! What followed was a 2 and a half hour wait, in which time the little bittern barked almost consantly. Whilst waiting, we located singles of Great White Egret, Bittern and Cuckoo. Eventually, we got a flight view of the male LITTLE BITTERN, but I was not quick enough with the camara, which was a bit of a shame after I failed to get any record shots of the last one I saw here back in 2013.

Great White Egret - Ham Wall

  Bittern - Ham Wall

Returning to the lower path by VP2 finally produced one of the rather elusive Glossy Ibis.

Glossy Ibis - Ham Wall

A look round the rest of Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath produced a further 3 Great White Egrets, 4 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 2 each of Jay, Mediterranean Gull, and Common Tern and singles of Hobby and Marsh Harrier.

Grey Heron - Ham Wall