Hello again, the big, and exciting, news today is of the arrival of a stunning glossy ibis. Here's the Arkive webpage about this bird for a bit more info. The latest news I have is that about 30 mins ago (18:20) the ibis was on Wath Ings ( via Chris Harris). Warden Dave tells us that this is the 4th record of a glossy ibis for the reserve.
Without any further ado, here's a photo from Twitter via Jeff Wragg.
And a video of it from Ian Morris. Thanks Ian and Jeff.
It seems that the glossy ibis arrived this morning at around 9am and was first picked up on the Mere. It has then wandered and flown around Old Moor - field pools,Wader Scrape and Wath Ings. Hopefully many visitors have seen it, sadly I have not...
Early on we have sightings from Old Moor from the Barnsley Birders on Twitter. They reported - 2 black tailed godwits on the Mere and one of them was colour ringed. The rings on the left leg above the knee were white, green and yellow and the ring on the right leg was blue with three white dots. Hopefully we might find out a bit more info on this bird very soon.
They also reported sightings this morning from Broomhill Flash - 1 mute swan, 1 great crested grebe, 1 pink footed goose and 5 pochard.
There was then a report of a male bittern booming all day, bitterns flying (probably female) and of a bittern flying over the glossy ibis on the Wader Scrape. How exciting is that?! Then a report of 2 med gulls and a little ringed plover on the Mere.
Paul Dennis was at Edderthorpe this morning and tweeted these sightings - 3 shelduck, 2 little egret, 1 avocet and 1 pochard.
That's almost it for today but I'm sure that all the usual suspects were still around and delighting visitors.
Dek Wroe sent me a lovely photo of a ruby tiger moth in the little garden near the VC today. Thanks Dek, gorgeous moth! If you'd like to know a bit more about this moth then here is the webpage from Butterfly Conservation about them.
Andrew tomorrow...