Just Cattle Egrets

I popped in to Black Hole Marsh after work yesterday. It seems hardly possible that until a few short years ago this was a damp field with three or four sedgy ditches. It was quite popular with autumn Whinchats I recall, and at least one jammy local has a patch Corncrake from those days, but now...

Well, it was heaving. I didn't count much, but loads of Black-tailed Godwits and Redshank, more than 50 Dunlin, 20-odd Ringed Plovers, 2 Little Stints, 2 Curlew Sandpipers, 3 Knot, a Greenshank, a couple of Common Sands, and whatever I missed. And that's just the waders. Among them was a colour-ringed Dunlin. Even with a scope I struggled to read the ring, but in spite of the range, unhelpful light and a Dunlin's typically jerky movements, the camera nailed it...

Yellow 27E appears to be from a Welsh ringing project. Details awaited...

While I was fiddling about with waders I heard my phone beep a couple of times. One function of the modern smartphone is to let you know exactly what birds you are missing right now. And as a rule, after waiting until I'm back in Bridport after a day's work, that's precisely what it does. However, on this occasion it boobed, because I was only a few minutes walk away from the action. I'd bumped into Tim White just a short while earlier, so it was great to go and enjoy the seven Cattle Egrets he'd just found on the estuary from the Tower Hide. Initially they were in the middle of the river, but as the rising tide covered their gravelly ridge they were forced to move...

Six on the left, one on the island. Seven is the most I've seen on the Axe patch.

Cattle Egrets always strike me as looking a bit shifty...

Around 18:25 they all headed S down the estuary together. Although eventually obscured from view, they did seem intent on departure. Apparently there were two on Black Hole Marsh at dusk, but I'll bet they were not from this party. Presumably they all (and a juvenile seen at Colyford Common the previous evening) were from the ever-growing Somerset Levels population...

Coincidentally there is currently a thread on Twitter which makes reference to some of the depressing changes in status and population of several formerly common species. Frequently this negativity is contrasted with the rise and rise of Little, Great White and Cattle Egrets, as well as Red Kites, Buzzards, and many other species. In other words, 'Look at these fantastic success stories! It's not all gloom and doom you know!' I'll admit, I do enjoy things like the spectacle of Cattle Egrets locally, because they were until very recently a genuine rarity. And I enjoy the relative ubiquity of Buzzards and Red Kites, and so on. But I also lament the loss of many small birds which used to be more abundant when I was younger. And I get the feeling that they were much, much more abundant. If I had to choose, I know which I'd rather have...