As mentioned yesterday, the great white egret as been showing fantastically well in front of Ivy north hide recently. Photographer Steve Edwards managed to get these brilliant photos yesterday afternoon and very kindly sent them to us to use on the blog. Thanks Steve! In the first photo you can see it has 3 plastic colour rings on it’s left leg, yellow over orange over red, I have sent these details to the British trust for ornithology and they will be able to tell us where it was ringed orignally. What a cracking bird!
In other news an osprey as been reported just up the road perched in a tree by the river Avon, hopefully it will turn up here for some fishing soon!
Also the Blashford volunteers group will be carrying out habitat management in front of the Tern Hide tomorrow between 10am and 12pm, so if your visiting the reserve you might want to visit the other hides first.
Do you think that the ringing has got out of hand? I mean three rings was one not enough?
Different combinations of colour rings are used so individuals can be identified in the field. This might be important for carrying out studies at breeding colonies. This individual from a French colony has been spending winter at Blashford for several years now.
Looks like the usual GWE that turns up each year. The rings look like LightGreen over Orange over Red. There is definitely no Yellow ring.
Mark