Could not resist a trip to Otmoor today as a juvenile Purple Heron had turned up there yesterday.
This afternoon after Loren finished work we took a trip to Otmoor hoping to catch up with the Heron that had arrived there.
After about 30 minutes we saw the Heron in flight around 500m away, it has been somewhat elusive and generally only seen in flight as it feeds in the reed beds generally out of sight and now and then will take a short flight to a different area of reeds to feed.
Purple Heron breeds in Africa, central and southern Europe, and southern and eastern Asia and is a rare visitor to the UK with c10+ records per year although they have bred in Britain since 2008 but in very small numbers i.e. 1 or 2 pairs.
Other species noted were 2 Marsh Harrier, Hobby, Little Egret, Common Crane, Grey Heron, Lapwing, Redshank, Turtle Dove, Raven and a few Warblers.
Everything was a bit too distant to get any meaningful photos unfortunately.
We did see quite a few Dragonflies and Butterflies as well but more focused on the birds today so not many ID’ed.
Dragonflies: Brown Hawker, Common Darter.
Butterflies: of note a Dark Green Fritillary and Painted Lady seen.
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