Thanks to our volunteer Phil for his report and photos.
During the last year I’ve been predicting to colleagues and visitors that within the next 5 years we would be seeing cattle egrets regularly at Pulborough Brooks. These are the latest white herons to be colonising the UK, following little egrets form about 30 years ago which are now widespread, and more latterly great white egrets which are still very scarce but crop up at Pulborough from time to time.
I’ve heard occasional reports of single cattle egrets at Pulborough before so it was therefore a great delight, but not a huge surprise, to be confronted by this distant scene from Jupps view last week.
You can just make out 2 white birds next to the Highland cattle, and I quickly confirmed in my scope that these were indeed cattle egrets and a 3rd one came into view. Unbeknown to me one of our volunteers earlier in the day had reported 5 and they do tend to form small flocks.
Cattle egrets are the smallest of the white herons and their feeding habits are very different from the typical heron like fishing habits of their larger cousins. They adopt the same technique as many other bird species feeding around cattle which being heavy stir up the ground with their hooves and expose invertebrates for the birds to feed on. They will also sometime perch on the cows and pick off fleas and ticks so the birds and cattle mutually benefit. They have also been known to eat smaller vertebrates and eggs. This diversity in their diet has most likely contributed to their success globally where they can be found in many parts of the world.
In Europe they have gradually spread from Spain and Portugal North into France and were first recorded in Sussex at Pagham Harbour in 1962. Since then over the next 40 years a gradually increasing number of birds have crossed the Channel to Britain but never stayed to breed. However in 2008 they bred for the first time in the UK on the Somerset Levels and have gradually become well established there. Since then a number of countries have recorded breeding cattle egrets with the spread at least as far north as Cheshire.
More locally, this year has seen cattle egrets breeding in West Sussex for the first time. This was at large heronry at Pagham Harbour North Wall, and visiting there in late May, although the chicks stayed out of sight, I was able to observe a group of adults feeding nearby around a large herd of cattle. Prior to this in the UK I have seen a distant solitary bird at RSPB Rainham Marshes and my only good sighting was of a sizeable group at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset last November where this photo was taken.
It seems now that a full scale colonisation of the UK is underway so with the grazing marsh at Pulborough Brooks seeming to be ideal feeding habitat for them I am looking forward to many more sightings in years to come.
4 pair have breed at Langstone, Hampshire