A day’s birding in Leicestershire & Rutland - February 23, 2013

I was out with Roger today and we initially went to Eye Brook Reservoir seeing a couple of Buzzard on route.

When we arrived at Eye Brook Reservoir we soon found a couple of male Smew and eventually saw four males and two red-heads but other than five Shelduck and three more Buzzard there was little else of real note.

We went to the dam seeing a couple of Red Kites on the way and we soon located the Great Northern Diver off the dam and also two Yellow-legged Gulls.

We then went to the fisherman’s car park in the north arm hoping for both Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes but other than a number of Goldeneye and a few Great Crested Grebes we saw little else.  We moved to the end of the Reserve Manager’s road where Roger found the Black-necked Grebe and then the Slavonian Grebe.  We had met Frank Pickering and Stuart Gill who shorted at us as we had gone through the gate to get better views of where they had seen some Dunlin before our arrival.  We could see a number of Dunlin, a single Ringed Plover and an Oystercatcher and a Redshank was observed in flight.  Frank then called us back and informed us that there was also a Sanderling.  We eventually found the Sanderling amongst the Dunlin, which we difficult to count as they kept flying around and then dropping out of sight.  We felt that there was at least twenty and we also saw three Ringed Plovers.  A single male Goosander in the fishponds was to be the only one of the day.

From the Bird Watching Centre we saw a number of Shelduck, a Little Egret and six Curlew on lagoon one before making our way to lagoon three.  Lagoon three produced a further four Shelduck and two male and five red-headed Smew.

Lagoon four was pretty quiet with just a few large gulls at the pre-roost assembly consisting of mainly Great Black-backed but there were also several Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls.  On the walk back we found eight Siskin and four Lesser Redpoll feeding close to redshank hide and a Treecreeper was also observed.

Back at the centre there were know three Little Egrets and a Sparrowhawk flew close to the centre.  At the Egleton feeding station there were two Lesser Redpoll and a few common species.  We decided to walk down the service road where there was a party of Redwing, a single Fieldfare and a Mistle Thrush feeding in one of the meadows.  We also saw four Brambling and there was nineteen Blackbirds feeding on the path where seed had been placed.  A second Sparrowhawk then flew from over the hedge scattering the birds as it passed close by.

On route home we had another three Buzzards, one at Cranoe and two close to Kibworth and five Tree Sparrows near Slawston.

We had recoded seventy-nine species, which is a pretty good total for this time of the year.