What have you seen

Saw a group of about 7 egrets together yesterday along the shoreline. Unusual as they are generally fairly solitary.

Passing a field of cows Mrs One counted 34 Cattle Egrets amongst them.  Whilst at a nearby lake 2 x Great White Egrets had a hissy fit.  Other good spot was a black necked grebe

We counted 140 cattle Egrets in amongst 3 herds of cattle.  The village of Linge seems to be the place they congregate 

We also saw one in a village with a broken wing, hope someone can do something to help it. 

best spot without doubt was a king fisher at Etang Purais.

Have just witnessed today, about 18.00 hrs. or so, several flights of large birds travelling north over Leamington Spa area.

I am not a hornythologist, but wondered if I was witnessing a training flight or an actual migration. They birds themselves were larger than a gull but not geese. The latter have a different wing flapping pattern .

Any ideas?

Just been watching 3 hedgehogs enjoying the food we have been putting out in the garden. 

Red face how about Cormorants, when at home we often get 200 to 400 pass overhead to go feeding or returning to roost.   

Thanks Oneputt, Cormorants are largely fishers, have seen a few on the Thames, Up here in Leamington there are not a lot of piscatorial opportunities, apart from the odd canal.

Do Cormorants flock/migrate in numbers, I do not know?

Many thanks for your input.

Thought you might be in Kent.  Nowadays, like a lot of geese, cormorants do stay in the UK although of course some continue to migrate.

There is migration going on, obviously it’s a two way thing. Bit early for  Starlings to start coming in but I know that geese are starting there inbound migration as are waders arriving in Norfolk

Had a small bird flying by our overhead electric cable near OH'S shed last night and thought it was a male redstart so it was there again tonight so got the bins out and it was a Spotted Flycatcher have not seen one for about 15/16 years when we had a nest at the bottom of our garden in Somerset, so good to watch it flying up and down catching insects and it is a juvenile so making its way down south.

Also seen a lot more swallows flying south and when we were on a boat trip last Saturday on the Dordogne we had a lot of Crag Martins flying down to drink on the river and catching insects must have been about 60/70 of them again enjoyable to watch them.

Still got the spotted flycatcher about and a lot of young restarts.

Just had a quick walk around our field before it gets to hot 33C for today and saw a lot of butterflies on the field scabious clouded yellow, pale clouded yellow, berger's clouded yellow, woodland grayling, greater banded grayling, small copper, adonis blue, common blue, mazarine blue, brown argos, large tortoiseshell, southern white admiral, small heath, pearly heath, painted ladies, peacock, red admiral, meadowbrown plus a few moths.  Yesterday we had a strange looking large wasp like insect getting water from our  little fountain not easy to photograph as it kept moving about and not keen on being close to it came back inside got insect book out to find it is a wolf spider hunting wasp about 2 inches long with a odd shape to the body not keen to have many of them about but we must have some wolf spiders about the area not keen on spiders when they are large, had house spiders in the house in the last week they had to go out, will stick to birds and butterflies.