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

I picked Roger up and we headed off to Charley Mill where there had been a Pied Flycatcher yesterday.

We walked down the lane scanning the fields and found a number of Wheatear in a field. As we were watching the Wheatear I picked up a male Redstart, which is a good bird for the counties. We eventually had counted seven Wheatears and with nothing else appearing we continued down the footpath where the flycatcher had been seen yesterday. We spent about thirty minutes in the area but, not surprisingly, there was no sign. The wood was extremely quiet with very little song brief song from both Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler being the best. We walked back down the track and as I was counting at the Wheatear, Roger announced he thought he had a Ring Ouzel but it dropped off the wall and out of sight. As we scanned the wall it reappeared and then dropped off the wall again but I then picked it up at the base of the wall and was able to confirm that it was a male. The Ring Ouzel then back to the other side of the wall and out of sight. As we were counting the Wheatear it reappeared and was joined by a female. The Redstart was still present and we eventually finished with thirteen Wheatear. It is surprising how all of these migrants were in one corner of a field as there were many other suitable areas but it did make the viewing easier.

Walking back to the car we decided to revisit Lockington Gravel Pits as we had seen a good selection of birds. When we arrived there appeared to be fewer birds but we eventually found two Oystercatcher, two Little Ringed Plovers, three Ringed Plovers, four Dunlin, a Green Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, a Yellow Wagtail and three Whit Wagtail. As we were thinking of leaving I was having a final scan and came across a male and female Teal and realised that there was a white blaze of the front of the flanks of the male, we had found a Green-winged Teal. We put the news out and apparently it was still there later in the day. Whist Green-winged Teal are not as rare these days and it was my third of the year it was still rather nice to find my own.

We moved off to Rutland Water but just before we arrived I received a tweet regarding a Whinchat at the sailing club. I called Steve Lister who informed me that he had just been looking at and provided further directions. Roger and I decided to go straight away before having lunch and after parking the car walked the short distance to hopefully view the bird. We soon located several Wheatears feeding on some recently disturbed ground and then Roger found the male Whinchat. These are really a superb species at this time of year and it provided excellent views as it fed from the disturbed ground. There were also seven Wheatears and a couple of Yellow Wagtails in the same area. Steve then joined us and informed us that there were five Arctic Terns of the dam.

We had our lunch and then went to the dam and soon found the terns of the far side. As we started to walk towards them we found another Wheatear and several Yellow Wagtails but it started to rain and so we returned to the car and went to the Egleton reserve. There was also numerous hirundine feeding over the dam but they were impossible to count. After a brief look on lagoon one, where we saw two Oystercatcher and a Common Tern, We went to dunlin hide on lagoon four as there had been a first-summer Ring-billed Gull in the pre-roost last night. We spent several hours in the hide seeing three Oystercatcher, an Avocet, a Little Ringed Plover, six Ringed Plovers, fourteen Dunlin, a Curlew, at least two Common Sandpipers, a Green Sandpiper and three Redshank. There were also seventeen Shelduck and five more Common Terns. I also counted fifty-two White Wagtails which is a significant count for the counties. As the evening progressed the gulls began to increase but there was no sign of the Ring-billed by 19:15 and it was turning rather cold we called it a day. The Ring-billed Gull apparently appeared briefly at 20:00 so perhaps we should have stuck it out. However despite the dip it had been an excellent day’s birding.