Monday 14 August 2017

CATTLE EGRET- A first for Beddington Farmlands


Just about managed to get back in time to see the Cattle Egret found by Prof and identified by Dodge - a first for Beddington Farmlands. The first systematic bird recording started at Beddington Farmlands around 1918 so a first for the site is the first in a Century! Cattle Egret takes the total number of bird species recorded at the farmlands to 260 ( list HERE- last updated 2012) - an incredible figure for an inland site and even more incredible in London.  My personal 219th bird species for the site-  second only to Beddington legend Garry Messenbird who has seen 226. Currently I'm racking them up at less than one a year which is why I started my Beddington Farmlands pan-species list which is at 1211 species HERE which I last updated a year ago so probably had 20 or so more since then. The total pan-species list for Beddington is 2029 (last updated in July 2015) HERE so birds clearly only representing 10% or so of the species on site (and probably much less than that as still a lot of work to do on the pan-species list). 


2 comments:

Steve Gale said...

The first of quite a few Cattle Egrets I'd wager

Peter Alfrey said...

Hope so- following your one at Priest Hill this is the Third (well documented) for Surrey