Last of the summer Hirundines?
A late reprieve of summer weather allowed me and Richard, a fellow wildlife photographer pal, to venture south last Saturday morning to the Thames, east of the sprawling and spreading redevelopment of East London, initially to RSPB Rainham Marshes. At the first vantage point, our gazes and lenses were directed to a Cattle egret on the Purfleet Scrape, by Pete, a mutual East Herts birder contact. I sometimes don’t know what pleases and surprises me more, the unexpected appearance of bird species or familiar faces, whether it is on the local patch or further afield. Birding has become a particularly social activity, for me. Together with the Cattle egret, there were a couple of Curlews and plenty of Little egrets, which in the last 30 years have moved from ‘rare’ status to ‘common as they come’ but always a pleasure to watch as they wade and fish in the shallows, more active than Grey herons but no less lethal to their fish suppers. Moving onwards, excited by the prospec...