Cattle egret - September 2025

On a sunny morning at the end of September I walked my usual route around the lakes at Blenheim to see what was about. The arrival of some Wigeon and Pochard along with a Great white egret shows winter is on its way. The egret breeding season is now over, and the only remaining evidence of it is a juvenile Cattle egret from the final nest of the year. It had been present with its sibling, but that seems to have left the site, and I haven't seen any adults recently. So this youngster appears to have been left to its own devices and hasn't yet made the decision to leave and then most likely join the roving flocks locally. It was sat in a tree on the edge of the Queen Pool island as I walked past, seemingly not intent on doing much. 

I continued my walk to check the Great Lake and then looped back on myself. As I did, the Cattle egret then flew from its perch on the island toward me. I took some shots into the sun as it then flew more or less over my head and landed a short distance away on the lawn below the Palace. Even though they have now established themselves at Blenheim and this was their fifth breeding season, they are almost always on the Queen Pool island. Adults don't use the site to feed and on only a few occasions over the past 4 years have I seen juveniles on the grass banks that surround the lake. So this was unusual.

Fortunately there weren't many people or dogs about so I had some control over how best to approach without unsettling it. It quickly set about feeding, picking craneflies off the ground. I approached cautiously to try and gauge the bird's comfort with my presence. On the occasions I have seen Cattle egrets on the ground north of Woodstock they have been generally quite approachable, more so than Little or Great White egrets. However I didn't want to be too bold and spook it immediately. I also needed to try and get the sun on my back to allow for the best photo opportunities. 

A car then drove along the road down to the Grand Bridge and that was enough to put it into flight and I thought that was probably the moment over, but fortunately it decided to loop round and land once again slightly further from the road.

I repositioned myself and gradually made my approach once more. For the next 10 minutes or so it happily walked around in front of me picking insects from the grass. Their vision must be razor sharp as it often seemed to spot its next item of prey from some distance away before trotting towards it. I crouched down and remained still and it was untroubled by my presence. 

Much to my delight it began to come closer and after a short while it was within about 15 feet of me. It was clear then that this would be one of those rare and special experiences where you feel like you become part of the bird's world. As with all herons and egrets, they have something of the pre-historic about them and you can clearly see from where they evolved.

It then took flight and landed in a nearby tree to digest its fill of insects. And that was that, back to reality. What a thrill to see such a charismatic bird as close as that, and a completely unexpected stroke of fortune. Despite their increase in numbers, I can't think I will ever tire of seeing them.

In among the hundreds of photos I took, I also tried to get a few clips of video. It is testament to the image stabilisation of modern cameras that handheld video with a long lens comes out somewhat passable.