I am delighted to say that I was wrong to suggest that we might have seen the last of our returning great white egret “Walter White” as today he appeared, way beyond his usual return time but here none the less. It was good to see him back at about 13 and a half years old he is a grand old bird now.
A rather distant Walter but with his distinctive set of rings, so we know it really is him (you can’t see the rings in this shot though).
It was actually quite a good day to be looking at birds on the reserve today. When I arrived Ibsley Water was alive with house martin, at least 1500 by my estimate and lots perching in the bushes around the main car park too.
House martins around the bushes in the main car park.
During the afternoon there were 3 garganey on Ibsley Water, they spent a good bit of their time well out in the centre picking insects off the surface, it seems that they were first seen on Friday, although not noted yesterday. Other ducks were few in number but included a pochard, shoveler, wigeon and teal. There were also still 2 ringed plover and 2 dunlin as well as single common sandpiper and green sandpiper. It was also a good day for birds flying over with red kite, peregrine, raven and marsh harrier being seen. We also saw the first common gull of the season as well, despite their name not usually a common bird at Blashford. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the most unusual record of the day was probably a female house sparrow in the bushes beside the Main Car Park.
In the morning there was a volunteer working party, we were working on the grassy bank near Ivy North hide, mending the fence and digging out Turkey oak saplings. This is an interesting area and gets very warm as the bank faces south and is angled at about 30 degrees, as the sun warmed up we counted at least 5 small copper butterflies.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 
There was a Gt White Egret at Wiltshire WT Langford Lakes on Friday. I wonder if that was Walter?
Aw!! A good day all round then! I visited early to get away from the road closures for the Bournemouth Marathon. I was treated to a sighting of a young stag (about a 2 year old as I learnt from the Exmoor Deerstalker recently), a lovely group of Wood Warblers (I think thats what they were) waking up on the far North of the site, the Bank Voles at the Woodland hide and the sight of a juvenile squirrel making his Mum have a rough and tumble. Worth getting up early for :-). Saw the volunteers toiling…great work guys.