A day’s birding in Leicestershire & Rutland - November 10, 2012

I was out with Roger today and we called at Eye Brook Reservoir first.  As we approached the reservoir we stopped to look for Little Owl, which popped out of the nest hole as I put my bins on the tree.  This was my first sighting at this site since July despite looking every time I have visited Eye Brook Reservoir.

We the stopped at the inlet bridge where we had a few Fieldfare and Redwing and three Siskin and four Lesser Redpoll.  There appeared to be more birds than my last visit but despite the now reasonable area of mud we could find nothing of note amongst the Lapwings, Teal and Black-headed Gulls.  Four Tree Sparrow were worthy of note and fifteen Skylark and seven Meadow Pipit flew over.  Two Shelduck were the first I had seen at the site since June.

We eventually moved off to the Egleton Reserve at Rutland Water and decided to walk to Lax Hill.  We initially made our way to snipe hide and found a few Redwing in the bushes as we approached the hide.  We continued to see several flocks of these and eventually had seen about sixty, whilst we only saw a single Fieldfare.

There was very little from snipe hide or fieldfare hide so we moved on to goldeneye hide.  I picked up a Black-necked Grebe close to the Lyndon Centre and there was a Redshank and a Little Egret close by with three more Little Egrets on the far shore.  Roger then found a female Common Scoter near the Old Hall and the female Red-breasted Merganser feeding amongst some Tufted Duck close to where the island normally appears.  We moved to robin hide on Lax Hill where we had a Marsh Tit and two Nuthatches visiting the feeders.

Goldfinch near Lax Hill

Dunnock from robin hide

Marsh Tit from robin hide

Female Chaffinch from robin hide

Nuthatch from robin hide

Male Greenfinch from robin hide

It was now 12:15 and so we decided to walk back to the Egleton car park for lunch.  We called at snipe hide on the way back with much the same result as earlier.

Female Reed Bunting close to Lax Hill

After lunch we walked in the opposite direction to shoveler hide on lagoon three.  The Ruff present on Thursday was still there as were the two Green Sandpipers but there were now fifteen Redshanks but I could only find three snipe.  We soon found the two male and two female Red-crested Pochards and four Pintail on the lagoon.

Another birder in the hide asked Roger what was on the edge of the reeds on the far side of the lagoon.  Roger quickly announced that a Bittern was a view and we had some reasonable views for about a quarter of an hour as it attempted, unsuccessfully, to catch prey on the edge of the reeds.  It eventually disappeared into the reeds but was apparently seen again later in the afternoon.  A Water Rail was also observed preening on the edge of a near reed-bed.

Egyptian Goose over lagoon three

Drake Teal on lagoon three

Drake Shoveler on lagoon three

We moved off to dunlin hide on lagoon four in the hope of seeing the Glaucous Gull which was present again last night.

We soon found two adult Caspian Gulls but nothing else was picked up amongst the pre-roost gathering.  There must have been something like a thousand Golden Plover on the lagoon and the lone Shelduck was still present.

Golden Plover and Lapwing in the early evening sunlight on lagoon four

As we walked back to the car park in failing light a Barn Owl flew across the meadows appearing to pass through the trees on to lagoon two.

We had recorded seventy-eight species today, which was not too bad considering the poor conditions early in the day.