Alkborough Great White surprise!

So after a productive week at Alkborough, (Pectoral Sandpiper, Temminck's Stint, Little Stint, Curlew Sandpiper and Tree Pipit) was it realistic to expect another new bird? On the way there at 7ish this morning Wayne predicted a Great White Egret as there seemed to be a few in the country so our usual policy came into play of going straight to the hillside to look over the reserve and see roughly where everything is and the first bird we see in front of the main hide is a stunning Great White Egret. Wayne frantically gets some record shots and we decide to shoot down to the hide to get closer views and predictably as we are driving down the hill the bird is flying high south! So we think roughly the bird was on site from 7-8 am. We decide to stay down in the main hide to look for the Pec which we didn't see but we were entertained with 5 Spoonbills, Hobby and Peregrine and a few Ruff and then at 12.20 Wayne thinks he got a glimpse of the Egret flying west up the Humber towards Trent Falls but as usual at Alkborough reeds get in the way and it doesn't reappear so off we trek down to the Trent bank and yes there it was on the rocks at Trent Falls with 2 Spoonbills, a Grey Heron and Little Egret. Again Wayne tries frantically to get more record shots when after 5 or so minutes it's off again this time along the Trent and back down in the flashes at Alkborough where it spent another couple of minutes before once again flying off high s/sw. Now unbeknown to us a Great White a Egret flew west past Far Ings at 10.55 which means potentially we had two separate birds or did our first bird do a big loop and come back to where it started - if we had some good images it may be possible to tell but judge for yourself.

Video at Trent Falls http://youtu.be/X1PiiwEjLbg

The two images below were taken on main lagoon at Alkborough, the one above at Trent Falls, are they the same bird?

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