What the Warden saw - Heron Day 7

"I thought it was supposed to be busy?" - probably the words that best summed it up from pretty much the last birder on site today leaving at 16:15. After a manic few days I was concerned about leaving the site for the morning. When I arrived at lunchtime there were 5 cars in the car park. Tony Simpson and Jeff Barker had made a valiant effort in South Lagoon inlet and North Marsh respectively but with no luck from around 10:00 - 14:00. Beyond this the Lagoons have been largely unobserved all day - so unsuprisingly no sightings logged of a bird that has not been seen with 60+ people on site earlier in the week.

Faced with a number of contacts all wanting to see the bird over the weekend it fell to muggins to put in another late evening looking for it. Late afternoon I managed the whooper swan on South Marsh East - but better was the first (and possibly two) reed warblers calling on West. The first 5 greylag goslings were on Watton NR and the first 8 mallard ducklings on N Lagoon - hopefully the removal of another mink on Saturday will aid their cause. The drake scaup was refound near number 17 on D res again. With these in the bag I then set too on the heron. After around 90 minutes in inlet hide it finally flew in from the northern end of the reserve to roost at 19:20 on North Lagoon. The grey blob in a tree in the top left is it (honestly):

The failing light and first rain for days had darkened the skies so this was ISO1600 on my point and shoot - but it shows what most people need to know - I'll leave the good pictures to others...

Reserve open dawn to dusk all weekend.