There was a time not so long ago when the colonisation of Britain by Cattle Egrets seemed imminent. Numbers of wintering birds rocketed, followed by breeding; then things slowed a little. As the 2019 Rare Breeding Birds Report shows, numbers are, again, on the rise. While we may not be seeing the exponential increase in breeding numbers that some of us might have expected, it does at least seem that the long-term trend in the number of Cattle Egrets (and other ‘southern European’ herons) breeding in Britain is on the up. Climate change is undoubtedly one of the driving forces behind the range expansions of many of these species.