Merlin & Brent Goose

Early to Mid-February produced nothing startling on the local marshes, but it's not often I fluke a leucistic Barnacle and Brent Goose in the same shot and get decent images of Merlin. Despite scrutinising multiple large flocks of Barnacle and Pink-footed Geese, I struggled to find anything especially unusual or rare.

The 18th produced very little again, other than large flocks of Pink-feet and Barnacles, and a nice Sparrowhawk.

That was until the last minute when, driving back home past a pond, I was dumbstruck by a large white bird perched in the overhanging branches: it could only be Great Egret! Grabbing my camera and slowly creeping up to the bird in the car, I carefully poked the lens out of the window and took the shot. Amazing! In fact, it seemed quite happy there preening away if it weren’t for the local farmer crashing about and shouting in the shed behind me. Anyway, the bird stayed long enough for me to take some really pleasing images. I also enjoyed playing around with the ‘adjust specific area’ tool on my canon editing software, which helped me create some rather arty shots, the left-hand one being especially pleasing.