15 July 2023 - Hollingworth Lake

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Cattle Egret, 2 Little Egrets

A bit of a red-letter day today.  I was due on my breeding bird survey so Joanne dropped me off along Rakewood Road on her way to work. I could see that there were two Little Egrets on the reserve, where the water level is now very low.  As I scanned, I realised that one of them was a breeding-plumage Cattle Egret!  It turns out there'd been one at Audenshaw earlier in the morning but had flown off, so very likely the same bird.

After my survey, I returned to the lake where the Cattle Egret was still present, and remained so all day. It never came particularly close, unlike the Little Egrets (there were in fact two of those as well), but allowed some reasonable photos throughout the morning.

Cattle Egret , 1/500 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 2000 (view full size image)

Cattle Egret, 1/640 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 800 (view full size image)

Cattle Egret , 1/250 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 100 (view full size image)

Cattle Egret , 1/500 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 250 (view full size image)

Little Egret, 1/500 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 320 (view full size image)