A day’s birding in Leicestershire and Rutland - June 23, 2012

Roger and I went to Ketton Quarry this morning as Roger was interested in seeing the Yellow Bird’s nest and Bee Orchids.  A Least Weasel had a lucky escape as it ran in front of the car on the A47 but decided at the last second to run the other way and made it back to verge.

When we arrived the weather was quite bright and as we walked down the cutting it seemed sheltered enough for insects but we saw nothing of interest.  We did locate a number of Common Twayblade plants and must a finished with about fifty by the end of the morning.  When we arrived at the site of the Yellow Bird’s –nest we must have found close to 100 plants but they had not come on much since Wednesday.  I also took Roger to see the Southern Marsh Orchids but only four were obvious and I found the fifth with the flower lying on the ground.  The two Bee Orchids at this site were both now in excellent bloom.  We continued to the site where twenty-two Bee Orchids had been seen on Wednesday and we counted twenty-four.  We also had a Ringlet and a Large Skipper.

After some lunch we went back into the quarry and found two Common Blue, a Small Heath and three Meadow Browns.  I also found and photographed a Chrysoteuchia culmella moth.

As the weather was not improving and was now rather overcast we decided to go to Rutland Water.

Common Blue

Common Blue

Bee Orchid

Common Twayblade

Yellow Bird's-nest

By the time we had driven to Rutland Water the weather had improved again and we immediately had a Green-veined White in the first meadow.  After signing in we walked to lagoon four and saw six Meadow Browns in a meadow and three Speckled Wood and a Red Admiral as we walked along the summer trail.  The summer trail also produced several Common Blue Damselfly and my first Emerald Damselfly of the summer.

Lagoon four was fairly quiet but we did locate two Oystercatchers, two Little Ringed Plovers; two Ringed Plovers and a Common Sandpiper.  Lagoon was very quiet although we did watch a Carrion Crow taking seven eggs from what we presumed was a Tufted Duck nest.  It did not appear to eat them but just distribute them to different parts of the lagoon.

We returned to the Bird Watching Centre where we saw two Shelduck, two Curlews and the Bran Owl in the nest box before we departed for a brief visit to Eye Brook Reservoir.

Little Egret over lagoon three

Little Egret on lagoon one

Carrion Crow with egg (Tufted Duck?)

Eye Brook was rather quiet but there were thrity-six Common Terns present, which is unusal at this time of the year and perhaps due to adverse weather and breeding failure.  There appears to be fewer terns at Rutland Water this year and very few can been seen actually nesting.