Rod's Birding: A day birding in Leicestershire & Rutland

I was out with Roger and we saw four Buzzards on route the first sighting was of two together as we drove to Kibworth with another just the other side of Kibworth Harcourt and the fourth was as we were approaching Blaston. Two Tree Sparrows were also observed at the pig farm to the east of Slawston.

One of the Little Owls was observed as we approached the reservoir. The water level at Eye Brook Reservoir has now dropped considerably again and is suitable for waders but there was only Lapwing present. There were three Shelduck on the water and two Red Kites towards Holyoake’s Farm with another Buzzard perched in a tree but nothing else of note.

We decided to go to the dam at Rutland Water in the hope of finding the Great Northern Diver and a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a couple of Jays on route.

There was no sign of the diver at the dam and fared no better in the north arm searching for Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes but we did see a couple of Barnacle Geese, at least five Buzzard over Burley Wood, four Oystercatchers, a Ringed Plover, twenty-seven Dunlin and a Redshank. Two Raven also flew over the north arm before heading off into the fishponds.

After an early lunch we signed in at the centre and initially had a look over lagoon one where we located six male and two female Goosander and four Little Egrets. We then walked to shoveler hide on lagoon three, seeing very little on route, except for twelve Curlew in flight and two Lesser Redpoll near redshank hide.

The water level had dropped and there was now plenty of mud exposed, which was to the liking of numerous Teal and four Green Sandpipers. We also found five Snipe and a Water Rail with a second Water Rail heard. A drake Smew and red-head found fairy quickly but we eventually agreed that there were two males and seven red-heads on the lagoon. There was also a pair of Scaup amongst a party of Tufted Duck, initially asleep but then seen diving for food. As I was scanning the ducks close to the reedbed a Bittern emerged from the reeds and flew low over the reeds. I called Bittern in flight and provided rough directions and everyone managed to get on it before disappeared back into the reeds. We then called on lagoon four where we found a single Ringed Plover but other than three Shelduck, a Red Kite flying over and two Buzzard on a telegraph pole there was little else.

Back at the centre there were now four male and four female Goosanders and a pair of Pintail at the back. The Barn Owl was also sitting on the edge of the nest box and then on top of fieldfare hide before it was seen being harassed by a kestrel when it flew straight back into the net box. A Sparrowhawk was also observed sitting on a fence post and sixteen Dunlin appeared amongst the Lapwing and two Oystercatchers were on one of the islands.

Having seen the both the Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes and the Great Northern Diver were observed yesterday in the north arm we decided to give them another go. We still couldn’t locate any of them but there were now six Oystercatchers and a Green Woodpecker flew over.

It had been a nice day out and we had a further Buzzard on the way home from the A47 close to East Norton.