Today I was sitting in the Green Centre hide at Wat Tyler Country Park chatting to my friend Dave C, when I got a call telling me the glossy ibis was in creek. I headed over there and there, a little way off, in the creek was a glossy ibis.
It was heading towards us, but soon disappeared behind the sea aster growing on the creek bank, and it was clear that it would be obscured even if it walked right in front of the bird screen. It duly did just that and I grabbed a couple of grab shots through gaps in the sea aster, most of which had some sea aster across the bird somewhere. We checked the tides and it was coming in, so we hung about and the ibis turned around when it hit a dip in the mud, all the time the tide was pushing the bird higher up the mud and above the sea aster more and more. Eventually it was high enough up the mud to be obstructed by a reed bed and tuned round and I got my best shot:
Some of the better shots:
It ended up walking all the way back to the dip in the mud where it stopped and flapped its wings.
Had a preen.
Then as I repositioned to avoid the sea aster it took off and disappeared.
