Dan, Wayne, Gethin and myself left our meeting point at Dan's house at 8.00am with Wayne at the wheel and made good progress arriving at Steart at 9.30am.
WWT have made an excellent job of turning the place into a proper reserve with car parks, good paths, top quality hides and a toilet block at the main car park.
We parked up (in the wrong car park !) and headed for the location of the 'star' bird, this being an american Lesser Yellowlegs which had been identified from photos on Friday and which Gethin wanted to add to his 'life' list.
As we walked up the embankment the word from a departing birder was dissapointing, he had made his third visit and was yet to connect and the bird which had been at the lagoon earlier had flown off.
We settled on the embankment and after a short while the bird dropped in from nowhere and started feeding as close to us as was possible, bingo, result !!
'High Fives' with Gethin and Tunnocks all round !!
I grabbed my camera and although the light was poor with a grey, overcast sky I managed some shots which I was quite pleased with.............
A Merlin flew through and a Meadow Pipit had a lucky escape, the Lesser Yellowlegs became a little edgy and after about 45 minutes or so flew off strongly in a north-westerly direction and didn't return.
A female Kestrel was hunting the rough grassed area just below us and I managed a few shots as it perched up on some fence posts.........
We decided to move on to try and catch up with a Cattle Egret which we had picked up on fields in the distance and it flew strongly towards us landing in a field near Marsh Farm adjacent the main access road to the reserve, we crossed paths with bird a few times allowing me to get some shots......
After a spot of lunch we decided to leave and at about 2.30pm we headed over the M5 to Ham Wall on the Somerset Levels hoping for a few more good birds and were not to be disappointed.
After spending some time at the look out point and the hide out on the marsh we decided to chance our arm at the fairly new Avalon Hide and soon had a couple of Marsh Harriers hunting the reedbed....
As we scanned the various wildfowl present which included Shoveler, Wigeon, Gadwall and Common Teal the pair of Glossy Ibis which have been on the reserve since the early summer dropped in to feed and preen on the edge of the reedbed in front of the hide, luck or what, needless to say my camera sprung into action.......
Wayne called a Great White Egret from the back of the hide and two dropped into the near reed bed......
We finished off the day hoping to see the Starling murmuration picking up a confiding Grey Heron on the way having been told that in the order of 10,000 birds were coming into roost in the reed bed, birds flew in from various directions in different size flocks and we estimated that something like 40-50,000 birds came into roost over 30 minutes or so.
Unfortunately probably because of the windy conditions the birds did not display and settled almost immediately in the reeds, still it was an awesome spectacle........
The light was now beating us and having enjoyed a great day out we headed for home at about 6.00pm, great company, plenty of friendly banter and some cracking birds made for a thoroughly enjoyable day out, we mustn't leave it so long next time.
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