A day’s birding in Leicestershire & Rutland - April 2, 2013

I was out with Roger today and we had a nice Barn Owl between Slawston and Blaston as we drove to Eye Brook Reservoir.

Eye Brook Reservoir was rather quiet with nine Shelduck and a male and three female Goosanders being the best.  We also saw three Buzzards over the surrounding fields.

We then drove to the north arm at Rutland Water where the female Long-tailed Duck was present and providing good views.  We thought this bird had departed as it was March 19^th when I last saw it and it just shows how easy it is for birds to hide here.  Roger then picked up a lone Whooper Swan, which was clearly not the same bird seen in March as there was no staining on its plumage.  There was also two Little Ringed Plovers, four Ringed Plovers and eight Dunlin on the north shore and at least two but probably four Redshank.  The two Barnacle Geese had also returned to their normal location after their excursion to Lax Hill last week.

From the centre we walked down the service road to lagoon three and saw two female Brambling and a Tree Sparrow at the feeding area in the meadows.  On arrival in shoveler hide we soon found a number of Snipe feeding in the grassy area where there had been a couple of Jack Snipe since Saturday.  They were not easy to see but we did eventually find eighteen but not either of the Jack Snipe.  Roger then found what he thought was possibly the Jack Snipe but it was asleep on one of the islands.  We spent some time viewing the bird agreeing that it was almost certainly the Jack Snipe, when it awoke and turned and faced us and we could see the diagnostic feature confirming it was on of the two Jack Snipes.  We scanned the ducks on the water but couldn’t find any Smew.

We called in grebe hide on lagoon two as we returned to the car park for lunch where we found a single red-headed Smew and then had four Water Rails in the flooded meadow.  A quick check at the feeding station produced a superb male Lesser Redpoll.

Male Lesser Redpoll at the Egleton feeding station

After lunch we went back to the centre where we spent a short time observing lagoon one but with little success, a distant pair of Pintail on the wet meadow being the best.

We decided to go back to the north arm to see if the two grebe had reappeared without success but we did have further views of the Long-tailed Duck and several Buzzards. a Red Kite and a Raven over Burley Wood.

Tim Appleton had given us permission to enter the reedbed again but it appeared much quieter today.  Roger had a brief view of anther Water Rail and we disturbed a Green Woodpecker feeding on a path close to the ringing hut.  As we walked towards the footpath through the bed itself a small dropped to the ground to feed and it was immediately identifiable as a redpoll but both Roger and I suspected that it was possibly a mealy as it appeared very white on the underparts.  It was not totally visible all of the time but I did manage to get some off shots on the camera before it flew up into the bushes and was joined by three others.  One of the other birds was also very white but we didn’t see the other two well enough as they flew up into an alder and then away.

Possible Mealy Redpoll

We continued our walk around the reedbed loop and had numerous Reed Buntings but little else.  We looked an area where seed had been put down and saw two Marsh Tits and a Coal Tit plus further Reed Bunting, Chaffinch, Robin and Blackbird. 

I had informed Steve Lister, the County Recorder, of the possible Mealy Redpoll and he said he had seen the Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes in south arm three.

We returned to the Egleton car park where I showed the photos to Steve, who thought that it was probably a Lesser Redpoll.

Roger and I decided to walk to lapwing hide in the hope of seeing the grebes and Steve went off to try and find the redpolls.  We found the grebes over towards the Old Hall, the Black-necked Grebe now in summer plumage but the Slavonian looking rather drab around the head and neck losing its black-and-white winter appearance and more difficult to identify, particularly at long range.  We called briefly again in shoveler hide where we found a male and two red-headed Smew.

I never heard any more from Steve about the redpoll and assumed he had been unable to locate them.

We called it a day at Rutland Water seeing an Osprey as we crossed Manton Bridge.  We called at Stoughton Airfield on the way home where we had a nice male Wheatear.