Egretta alba

Following a texted tip-off from Gray-boy this afternoon, I headed straight off to Birstall GPs after work for a sharpish frogmarch to the weir to look for a Great White Egret. Luckily, seeing as it's been years since I went to this part of the Soar Valley, I went the wrong way and ended up getting superb views of the bird milling about on a scrape in front of one of the old locked hides. Excellent - and a county tick to boot. I then walked round to the weir and realised that had I of gone the right way I probably wouldn't have seen it. Unfortunately I left the camera in the car as it was very dull and pissing down - might go back tomorrow afternoon if the weather is better as the bird looked pretty settled. Otherwise I didn't hang about to look for anything else but a pair of Goosander on the river was nice, and I also picked up an unwelcome mammal tick when a big manky Mink swam past.