I decided to pay another visit
to Rutland Water today as if the weather forecast is correct it mat be the last
decent day until the middle of next week.
I went straight to the Egleton Reserve and headed off towards Lax
Hill. As I approached mallard hide on
lagoon one there was a party of birds feeding in the bushes and I saw a single
Chiffchaff and Marsh Tit. Three Little
Egrets were the highlights from mallard hide and snipe hide on the wet meadow fared
no better with just two Little Egrets and there was nothing of note from
harrier hide. On reaching gadwall I
scanned the island in south arm three, seeing a couple of Ringed Plovers,
several Dunlin and a singe Ruff but there was no sign of the Pectoral
Sandpiper. There must have been in
excess of 500 House Martins low over the water in the south arm but I only saw
a couple of Swallow and a single Sand Martin but I am sure that there were
probably more. There were three
Yellow-legged Gulls amongst the Great Black-backed Gulls on the islands and two
Chiffchaffs were observed just outside the hide. As I walked towards Lax Hill I could see that
there was little close to goldeneye hide and so gave it a miss but had as second
Marsh Tit from robin hide. I continued
over the top of Lax Hill and dropped down to wigeon hide to overlook south arm
two and Manton Bay. I found two Ruff and
three Pintail in Manton Bay and there was a single Little Egret on the bank of
south arm two. As I scanned the wigeon
in south arm I came across several Little Grebes and then noticed a winter
plumaged Black-necked Grebe amongst them, which was a good find. I called at kingfisher hide on lagoon eight
and found two Common Sandpipers just in front of the hide but there was very
little else on the lagoon. From the 360° overlooking lagoon five there were five
more Little Egrets and as I walked to shelduck I found my third Marsh Tit of
the morning. Seeing one is usually a
good bird for the day at the site.
After some lunch I went to the
Old Hall as the Pectoral Sandpiper and two Little Stints had been visible from
there. Way I arrived I found Mick
Kettley and two other birds present and they informed me that they had not seen
either and were feeling there was little chance of doing so. I scanned from the left hand side of the
island and found the Pectoral Sandpiper almost immediately, initially
suspecting it due to its more leisurely feeding action. Further scans then produced at least one and
possibly two Little Stints although the distance makes watching small waders
almost a waste of time.
On returning to the reserve I
walked to sandpiper hide on lagoon four where I had much better views of a nice
juvenile Little Stint that was in company of nine Ringed Plovers and a single
Dunlin. There was also ten Pintail on
the lagoon and three Red Kites and five Buzzards were observed towards Burley
Wood. There were four Black-tailed
Godwits feeding on lagoon three but the only other wader was a single roosting
Snipe.
Black-tailed Godwits feeding on lagoon three
At crake hide the long staying
juvenile Sparrowhawk was still present and there were also five Snipe feeding
in what appear to be ideal conditions, certainly Teal and Moorhen seem to lake
the area. I couldn't find the
Black-necked Grebe reported earlier from lapwing hide as the light was now very
poor, particularly looking to where it was earlier.
Juvenile Spotted Redshank from crake hide
Female Teal from crake hide
Moorhen from crake hide
Little Grebe from lapwing hide
Drake Wigeon from lapwing hide
I called at redshank hide on
lagoon two on my way back to the centre where I saw a Hobby, three Green
Sandpipers, a Greenshank and the only Common Tern of the day. Two Hobbies were observed from the Bird
Watching Centre and a Kingfisher provided some nice views as it sat and fished
unsuccessfully from the wire fence.
Grey Heron on lagoon one
No comments:
Post a Comment