I went to Rutland Water with
Dave today as there had been a Black-throated Diver reported late yesterday
evening off the Old Hall. We saw Roger
and Andy Brett as we arrived at the Old Hall and they had not seen the diver
but we decided to give it a go but with the same success. There were ten Oystercatcher and two
Redshanks just east of the Old Hall and a male and female Goosander west of it
and we did find a Chiffchaff close to where we had parked the car.
We then decided to walk along
the south shore of the north arm towards Armley Wood in the hope of finding the
elusive Great Northern Diver. We scanned
the north arm to the west and I picked up the female Long-tailed Duck and after
walking a good way along the footpath Dave picked up the Great Northern Diver
off Whitwell.
We then went to view the north
arm from the end of the Reserve Manager’s road where we found the Whooper Swan,
female Red-breasted Merganser and both the Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes.
On the Egleton Reserve lagoon one
produced a third Goosander, a pair of Pintail, three Little Egrets and eight
Curlew. When we were considering walking
to lagoon three Chris and Colin arrived and informed us that they had just had
two Short-eared Owls, a Barn Owl and a Stonechat at Luffenham Airfield, so we
decided to go and take a look.
When we arrived at the
airfield there were a number of soldiers carrying some short of exercise, which
included firing a gun, presumably blanks.
We felt with this amount of disturbance there was little chance of
seeing anything. There were circa
fifteen Meadow Pipits feeding on some short grass nearer to us and I did
eventually pick up a Short-eared Owl being mobbed by a Carrion Crow some
distance away. It continued to fly high and
gradually came closer to us before dropping down but that was the last we saw
of it.
We had a nice Barn Owl just
after we had passed through Edith Western as we returned home. We called at a site near Billesdon in
Leicestershire on route home where there is an apparent Tawny Owl
roosting. We pulled onto a concrete area
in front of a barn and looked back down the road at a tree close to a stream
and the Tawny Owl duly obliged, which was a nice end to a good afternoon.
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