No, not a Carcharodon carcharias, but an Ardea alba, a Great White Egret. By regularly following the excellent Ploddingbirder blog by Martin Casemore, I had seen that some Great White Egrets were often coming near the hides at Dungeness. In the past whenever I went to Dungeness I nearly always saw these impressive birds, but always too distant for decent photography. I contacted a friend, David, who lives en route to see if he fancied a trip over to see if we could get any close birds. On entering the hide I saw an Egret walking in the water nearby that was just leaving an open area. It unfortunately kept walking the wrong way as it hunted the small fish in the area, however, before it got to the end of a small bay it returned and then gave us some fantastic views and opportunities for photography. In total on the whole reserve we saw 9 of these superb birds, but only the one close.
Great White Egret through the reeds.
Hunting the small fish.
A bad hair day!!
A small prize for such a large bird.
Great White Egret, a really elegant bird.
We also saw several Ruff, 3 Little Stint and a male Bearded Tit although generally the reserve was very quiet, following a good weekend where several rarities had turned up.
And yes, I have seen Jaws too many times!!
THere's a much photographed specimen in Notts at the moment
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