Dave and I decided to visit
Melton Country Park to get further photos of the first-summer Ring-billed
Gull. As we arrived at the car park,
Roger was about to leave and informed us that the gull had been there but had
flown off. He parked up again and walked
with us to the lake. As we approached
the southern end of the lake we saw a single gull on the water, which was
clearly the Ring-billed, it had returned.
It was much closer than our
previous visit and provided excellent photo opportunities during our stay.
First-summer Ring-billed Gull
Having taken numerous photos
of the bird on the water and a few in slight we decided to call it a day and
headed off to Rutland Water.
We had lunch at Rutland Water
before viewing lagoon one where there was a Black-tailed Godwit and two
Oystercatcher but very little else.
We hoped to see at
first-summer Little Gull on lagoon three but other birders indicated that they
had not seen it but we decided to take a look anyway.
As we approached shoveler hide
on lagoon three a Little Egret flew over and despite there being twenty Common
Terns feeding at the back of lagoon three there was no sign of the Little
Gull. After a while with just a Red Kite
and Buzzard being seen towards Burley and our first Hobby in the Counties this
year, we moved to the new bittern hide but saw nothing new.
From dunlin hide on lagoon
four we had two Oystercatcher, six Avocet, a Little Ringed Plover, two Ringed
Plover, three Dunlin, a Ruff and a Curlew but there was no sign of the reported
Greenshank. After we had been in the
hide for a while two waders dropped in that were clearly Whimbrel or Curlew but
went behind on of the islands and out of sight.
My money was on Whimbrel on what I had seen and after a short while they
flew and came towards settling closer and were confirmed as Whimbrel. One bathed in shallow water whilst the other
just dozed. The dozing bird then flew
off but the other continued bathing but did depart some time later. We finally decided to call it a day after a
reasonable afternoon.
Common Tern over lagoon three
Whimbrel on lagoon four
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