Egrets?…I’ve had a few
Last Sunday morning I couldn’t help myself and made the short journey to the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border to twitch a couple of rather special birds that have been around the Attenborough area for a few weeks now – Cattle Egrets!
The birds have been spending the night roosting with Little Egrets and Grey Herons on a wooded island in one of Attenborough nature reserves wildlife rich, flooded gravel pits but are spending the daylight hours feeding in a couple of livestock pastures just across the River Erewash in Derbyshire. Crossing the wooden bridge I could see the fields in question with their mix of cattle (including a stunning shaggy Highland Coo ;-), sheep and even a couple of Alpaca’s and straight away got onto four small white Herons stalking and feeding amongst the animals, tumbledown out buildings and pieces of farm equipment. Just occasionally birding can be that easy!
The closest two birds proved to be more familiar Little Egrets. 
These stunning white Herons began to colonise the UK in the mid 90’s and over the last 25 years have expanded significantly in both number and range so that they are now a familiar sight along the waterways and wetlands in the south of the county and are even seen regularly in and around Derby! In fact Little Egrets bred for the first time in Derbyshire in 2018 and show every sign that they are here to stay.
Cattle Egrets on the other hand are still a much rarer bird and will be more familiar from David Attenborough films and African wildlife documentaries, as these are the little white Herons we see perched on the Hippos and feeding amongst herds of Elephants and Wildebeests. It is this connection with large herbivores and livestock that gives the Egret its name. As I located and watched the two long staying Cattle Egrets they certainly seemed to be finding enough to eat – picking out earthworms and invertebrates from the muddy churned up pasture with great regularity, their yellow bills and slightly smaller, more hunched posture making them easy to discern from their Little Egret cousins.
Following a couple of false starts and after some recent winter influxes Cattle Egret are now breeding regularly in the UK though they have a long way to go to match the numbers and range of the Little Egret! Who knows maybe in another 25 years Derbyshire will have another Heron species to add to its list of breeding birds – lets hope so!
