Cattle Egrets, Spoonbill, WeBS

After no patch records at all so far this year, the sudden appearance of 14 Cattle Egrets at Passage House this morning was something of a surprise; see video here. There was no sign of them there or at Teigngrace at lunchtime, although a Goosander on the estuary was the first in almost exactly four years. 

On Sunday the Spoonbill was still present east of Passage House, joining a group of Little Egrets and Cormorants foraging along the falling tide; estuary-wide counts of the latter were 35 and 16 respectively. Other WeBS totals comprised 330 Oystercatchers, 71 Redshanks, seven Greenshanks, just 37 Curlew, 23 Turnstones, six Dunlin, five Ringed Plovers, two Common Sandpipers, 300 Black-headed Gulls, 120 Herring Gulls, 34 Greater Black-backed Gulls, 16 Cormorants, 23 Mallards, 19 Shelducks, 17 Mute Swans, 12 Red-breasted Mergansers, four Little Grebes, two Wigeon, two Kingfishers and singles of Lapwing, Teal, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Common Gull and Canada Goose.

Spoonbill (Laurie Allnatt)

Spoonbill (fourth from right) with Little Egrets (Laurie Allnatt)