Rod's Birding: A day in Leicestershire and Rutland

Started off today at Dave’s, in Newton Harcourt, to empty his moth trap. There was only one new species in the trap, which were three Ingrailed Clay but two other god moths were a Privet Hawkmoth and a Buff-tip.

Privet Hawkmoth

Buff-tip

Ingrailed Clay

Limnephilus rhombicus

Having emptied the trap we set off to Rutland Water where they were having a bioblitz. We arrived at the centre and having signed in we set off in the direction of lagoon four to see what we could find. It was still quite misty when we set off but before we had reached lagoon four the sun was beginning to break through. We walked down the summer trail and found a rather nice looking snail, which we identified as a White-tipped Snail and we also flushed a few Ringlet butterflies. As we approached the far end of the trail we began to see some damselflies and identified Emerald, Common Blue and Blue-tailed.

We entered sandpiper hide but it appeared rather quiet on lagoon four and clearly some of the birds present yesterday had departed. We did locate four Little Ringed Plovers, four Ringed Plovers, a Common Sandpiper, two Green Sandpipers, and a Redshank. There was also three Yellow-legged Gulls amongst a party of Great Black-backed Gulls and we also found a single Black-tailed Godwit amongst a group of Black-headed Gulls.

After leaving sandpiper hide we explored the vegetation at the base of the bund around lagoon four and we found several interesting flies and also my first Small Skippers of the year. There was a Four-spotted Chaser over the small pool between the two hides and plenty of Ringlet and Meadow Brown butterflies and there was also a single Red Admiral.

There was a very heavy shower whilst we had lunch but after it had stopped we moved off towards Lax Hill. The path close to lagoon five was flooded and we had to make our way across the top of the bund to get around it. There was a Lesser Whitethroat singing near snipe hide but there appeared to be far less on the pool in front of snipe hide then there was on Monday. There were a pair of Shelduck with seven young on the scrape and they were showing aggression to other wildfowl, which is perhaps why there was less. We did eventually see five Green Sandpipers and a single Little Egret. We continued on towards harrier but decided to carry on to fieldfare hide and hopefully get there before the next shower arrived. We entered fieldfare just in time as the heavens opened again and the shower lasted for some time. When it eventually stopped having very little from fieldfare we moved off to Lax Hill where we saw to Willow Warbler but little else. After a brief stop at a site where we had seen White-letter Hairstreak last year, but there was no sign today, we walked around Lax Hill and dropped down to lagoon eight.

We called at pintail hide on lagoon six where we had two Egyptian Geese, our only ones today, six Oystercatchers, a Little Ringed Plover and four Common Terns.

Time was now pressing so we returned to the car park only to find that Dave had left his lights on this morning and the battery was now flat. A call to the AA and a short wait soon had the problem fixed and we returned home.