Dave and I went to Rutland
Water for the afternoon and started off at the fishing lodge at Normanton but
there was still no sign of any Mandarin or the Great Northern Diver, although I
did see a Kingfisher briefly closely to the yacht club. We called at Lyndon but the feeders were
rather quiet and we found nothing unusual on the water, although I did see a
flock of circa twenty Dunlin briefly in flight.
As it started to rain more persistently we went to the fisherman’s car
park in the north arm. The rain had
almost stopped again when we arrived and there were clearly more birds present,
particularly Tufted Ducks. We scanned
the area and Dave located the Long-tailed Duck that had avoided us over the
last couple of visits. There were plenty
of birds in the fishponds and we located an adult male Scaup amongst the Tufted
Duck. Seven Pintail and a few Shoveler
were also visible in the north arm.
When we had signed in at the
centre we decided to go to lagoon three as there had been a Smew yesterday. After yesterday’s rain the footpath was under
water and not having wellingtons on I had to pick my way through one of the
meadows to reach the main track.
There was no sign of the Smew
and the water had risen slightly again.
I found a Ruff and a Green Sandpiper was feeding close to the hide and
when something disturbed the birds sixteen Snipe and three Redshanks flew
over. A Water Rail was also seen briefly
quite close to the hide and eleven Golden Plover and twelve Dunlin flew
over. A Kingfisher flew low over the
lagoon before disappearing behind the reed bed.
We continued to scan the water but the light was not good and was
beginning to fade when I heard a croak and when I looked the Bittern was
observed flying from the area of buzzard hide to the main reed bed. With the light now pretty poor we walked back
to the car park and made our way home.
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