Great White Egret

It's not every day that one of the UK's rarest birds comes to Thatcham, so I thought I would stop by at Lea Farm, just off the A4 to take a peek at the Great White Egret which appears to have taken up residence there, for a few days at least!

The Great White Egret is unmistakeable; standing around 1m tall with a wingspan of 1.3 - 1.7m. It is around 30% larger than the Little Egret, its much more frequently seen cousin.

When I visited, the Egret was at the far end of the lake from the hide, so you will need binoculars and a long lens or decent Bridge Camera to take photographs. Even my DSLR and 100-400mm lens weren't really adequate. Unfortunately this morning was rather cloudy too, so high ISO was needed, which took the edge off the quality of my pictures.

How to find Lea Farm

Lea Farm can be reached by leaving the A4 (towards Newbury from Thatcham) onto Hambridge Road and taking the first exit at the mini-roundabout onto Hambridge Lane. Then follow the road straight on, until it becomes an unmade road. You'll then need to follow the brown signs for "bird hide".

The NDOC site provides a map. The grid reference is SU495665. This translates to GPS coordinates of 51.395385N and 1.2899073W, if you need to programme your sat nav.

Wheatear Migration

With the summer over (and what a good one it was!) our attentions are now focused on the autumn migration.

I took a trip up to Walbury Hill, which at 974ft is the highest natural point in South East England and a good place to spot migrating Whinchat and Wheatear. It is located near Hungerford, West Berkshire.

No luck with the Whinchat today, but it was nice to see this friendly Wheatear posing for me on a post near to the westerly car park adjoining Combe.

Additional sightings at Combe were two Red Kites doing aerial acrobatics, a hunting Kestrel, 30+ swallows and a Meadow Pipit.