First time for a long time...

I'd been waiting for a half-decent day to coincide with the time to visit and yesterday fitted the bill perfectly. It's the first time I've been to LM for about 20 years. After a quick trip up the sky tower - you never know! - I headed off to Tim Jackson hide. There were plenty of teal around, but the first things to grab my attention were a red deer stag deep in the reeds opposite and three egrets dotted around the pools. One took off immediately and went to a far pool, leaving me questioning whether it really was my first great white egret or not. The other two were definitely little egrets and after a quick scuffle we were down to one, who quickly made the most of it - pictured here with its catch.

On to Grisedale hide, where more teal and shoveler were around and more little egrets (5+) fought for fishing rights, and another four red deer stag could be seen descending from the woods opposite. If I wasn't sure earlier, I definitely had a great white egret, now.

 Heading back to the cafe for lunch, a group had formed on the trail. Turned out they were admiring this female pheasant sunning herself on a log. She may be brown, but beautifully patterned and it's not often you get to see them in such detail.

In fact everyone, including myself, were astonished by how tame the pheasants were, with a male wandering in amongst us. The reserve may be famous for bitterns and harriers, but from the number of comments I received, it's the pheasants I'd make as the symbol - I'm not sure if they are as tame anywhere else. so here's a male I came across on the causeway - stunning colours in the sunlight!

When I got to Causeway hide, the pintails had apparently scooted off somewhere, with not a one to be seen anywhere - untrustworthy things! Back on the trail I met a fellow photographer from Pennington Flash in the woods before Lower Hide. A bit of food he'd put down had attracted the marsh tits, as well as blue, coal and great tits and a couple of small rodents no-one could identify, but possibly voles of some description.

Sadly, no otters or bitterns showed their faces to me while I was in Lower hide, so I made my way back, deciding to call in to Lillian's hide. It was about 3pm by now and a volunteer warden suggested it was a good time and place to see the harriers. While we were waiting, there was plenty yo keep us occupied, like a few snipe. This pair demonstrated pretty much how I expect to see snipe... well-camouflaged.

But there were bolder ones, as well.

The beautiful light made the most of this lovely teal, too, drifting past the snipe.

And yet another little egret showed up and fished right in front of us. Sun, bright blue sky reflected in the water and a fabulous bird - I have so many photos I didn't know which to use, but I'll settle for these. With a fish...

And looking rather more fluffy than normal...

My thanks to the volunteer warden (sorry, I didn't get your name) who must have had the eyes the harrier - always first to spot when one took to the air and over the next hour or so we were treated to several flights from a female and a juvenile male. Beautiful to watch, with the sun catching different parts with every movement. It was at quite a distance, so the photos (of the juvenile male) are heavily cropped and don't bear further zooming but they give an idea of the spectacle.

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For the last of the light, I went to the Morecambe Bay hides. The avocets weren't visible, but there were curlew, redshank teal and these lovely shelduck.

With hindsight, I'd do those hides first, next time, before going to the main reserve - the evening light is against you for the most part, turning the birds to silhouettes.

All in all, a great day out.