We arrived at the lake at about 4.30, found the island with the dead tree and cormorant roost and set the scopes up. Just Steve and myself and a few curious locals asking what we were up to. The roost is in a public park so lots of interest from those out for their Sunday stroll. We were as polite as possible without being too encouraging, we really didn't want a mob, we just wanted to enjoy the bird, end the day on a high and head home.
"Hey Mick, take a look over there" says Steve, "I don't believe it!!!" You remember the scene in the film 'Zulu Dawn', when over the hill come thousands of Zulu warriors, headgear, shields and spears on show. Replace the headgear with woolly hats, the shields with binoculars and the spears with scopes and our very own mob of Zulu birders came thundering down the footpath towards us.
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| "I say chaps, the little buggers been hanging around that tree over there, bloody cheek, invading someone elses tree, what...rather inconsiderate wouldn't one say?" |
This was turning into a real twitch. Eight of us now hugged the lake shore, this only served to get even more locals curious as to what was going on. It took all my years of practice in the art of 'evasion of eye contact' in order to avoid being distracted again, some of the new bigger group obviously weren't as skilled as me and made the mistake of eyeballing the strollers and getting pounced on. "what, why, where...... really....... blah blah blah
Back to the egret. The sun just started to go behind the trees and the lake was looking a little duller when from the left a flash of white. Right on cue the bird landed on the front lower part of the tree and gave great views. This cattle egret has been roosting here for quite some time so we were pretty sure we'd get to see it, however we couldn't be sure it would land on the front of the tree and show so well.
It was a great end to a really great day (more on the next post) and all that remained was the trip back down the A1 and home.
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