Time was when I classed purple heron as my bogey bird in the UK, I just couldn't see one, in fact I'd been birding 40 years before I managed to connect with the species on home soil. However since then I've not done too bad, and todays bird at Eagland Hill on the Fylde was my 4th in five years.
What on earth it's doing at Eagland Hill surrounded by the arable fields of the North Lancashire mosslands is a real mystery. I mean yes there are a few reedy ditches in the area, but not really that many to hold a species which is usually much more associated with reedbeds than grey heron. In fact this bird, which is a juvenile, spends as much time in a field of tall rank vegetation as it does in the nearby ditches.
Caught red-handed! or more accurately red-billed. The blood on the lower mandible is that of a field vole which it caught shortly before I arrived.
I also had a brief stop today at Knott End-on-sea to have a look at the regular flock of twite.
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