There had been a report of a
Hawfinch in the Egleton car park at Rutland Water yesterday at Rutland Water so
Dave and I decided that is where we should start today. There was no one else present when we arrived
and after a short while I found the bird feeding near the toilet block and we
were soon joined by Roger and we had good views of what was probably a female before
it flew off to the north.
Hawfinch in the car park at Egleton
Roger left his car in the car
park and we all went to the Old Hall where the Long-tailed Duck and Slavonian
Grebe had been reported yesterday. I
soon found the Long-tailed Duck, which was fairly close in south arm three but
there was no sign of the Slavonian Grebe but we did have a couple of
Redshank. Dave and Roger walked off
towards the Old Hall and eventually called me to tell me that they had the
Slavonian Grebe in the bay between the Old Hall and Hambleton Wood. I soon joined them and eventually had good
views of the bird as it dived and fed in the bay. That was two County year ticks in the first
couple of hour, not a bad start to the day.
We then moved off to the north arm where I located a drake Scaup amongst
a raft of Tufted Duck in the fishponds.
There was also three drake Goosander and a single Redshank.
When we arrived back in the
Egleton car park there had been no further sign of the Hawfinch so we decided
to go lagoon three. As we walked north
towards lagoon three and four we saw a Peregrine on one of the osprey perches
on lagoon four but decided to continue to lagoon three. When we arrived the
water was partially frozen over but there were still plenty of duck on the
unfrozen areas. Roger located a drake
Smew and there was a Green Sandpiper and two more Redshank on the lagoon and
seven Snipe were observed in flight before they dropped in out of sight. We walked to lapwing hide but it was fairly
quiet and we added nothing new.
Goldeneye from smew hide
Goldeneye from lapwing hide
Coot from lapwing hide
Wren from redshank hide on lagoon two
We went back to the car park
and found that the Hawfinch was back and was now feeding at the top of trees
near the toilet block. We watched the
bird and I took several more photos before we had our lunch and went to the
centre to view lagoon one.
Lagoon one was also partially
frozen over but a second Green Sandpiper fle over and dropped on lagoon four
and we had a further eight Goosander, which were joined by a female
Red-breasted Merganser.
Roger had to now leave and
Dave and I decided to call at Eye Brook Reservoir but got delayed as we had
further views of the Hawfinch.
Redwing in the car park at Egleton
Redwing in the car park at Egleton
Robin in the car park at Egleton
Hawfinch in the car park at Egleton
Hawfinch in the car park at Egleton
Hawfinch in the car park at Egleton
We arrived at Eye Brook
Reservoir and spent some time looking at the feeders where we there were a
number of birds feeding the best being a Coal Tit. At the inlet there was an area of mud exposed
and Dave thought he had a Knot but when we scoped the area we could only find
Ruff, although there were twenty-two, which is an excellent count. We also saw a single Little Egret but there
was little else of note. A Little Owl
was observed in the old oak as we left the site.
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