A day in Nottinghamshire & Rutland - September 8, 2013

Dave, Roger and I set off for Attenborough Nature Reserve today to hopefully see a juvenile White-winged Black Tern.

When we arrived it was noticeably cooler than of late, particularly when the wind got up.  We had a Whitethroat in the brambles close to where I had parked the car and a Kingfisher flew over as we approached an area to view the lake.  Initially there was no sign of any terns but then we picked up a Black Tern, which raised hopes that the Winged-winged Black Tern might also be present.  It wasn’t too long afterwards when Dave thought he had it near the sailing club on the far side, which we all soon confirmed that it was in fact the bird.  Both it and the Black Tern seemed to moving around quickly and flying quite high and often disappeared to areas not visible from our vantage point.  Eventually the White-winged Black settled down more and began feeding between the sailing club and the eastern end of the lake and occasionally coming a little closer.  On one occasion it came quite close but had avoided everyone’s attention as I picked it up in the north east corner soon enough to get the camera on it and getting thirty shots off.  As it turned out twenty-seven of the shots were pretty good and some very pleasing.  We also saw Sparrowhawk, a single Common Tern and a Grey Wagtail from the same view point.

Juvenile White-winged Black Tern

We visited the tower hide but unfortunately the viewing was directly into the sun but we did see two more Sparrowhawks, a Buzzard and another Common Tern and there were numerous hirundines over the reserve.

With nothing much else about we decided to go to Rutland Water for the rest of the day.  On arrival we went to the north arm where we found a single Barnacle Goose, a lot of Egyptian Goose, a Green Sandpiper, two Greenshanks and a single Common Tern.  There was a party of birds near the cottage and we found a single Chiffchaff and Treecreeper amongst the Blue Tits.

After some lunch we walked to sandpiper hide on lagoon four and counted thirty-one Pintail, six Little Egrets and found two more Greenshanks.  There were several Buzzards over Burley House and we had a brief of an Osprey as it dropped into the north arm.  From crake hide we had a Little Egret, a Water Rail; a juvenile Ruff, nine Snipe, a juvenile Spotted Redshank and a Reed Warbler and Dave found two Goldeneye from lapwing hide and the I found another Pintail.

Mating Migrant Hawkers

Juvenile Ruff and Spotted Redshank

Juvenile Spotted Redshank

From Shoveler hide on lagoon three there were another Water Rail, eight Snipe and three Black-tailed Godwits.  I found another Pintail and we had further views of several Buzzards and a juvenile Osprey was seen on one of the erected perches on lagoon four.

Snipe

As we began walking back to the centre we were delayed, looking unsuccessfully for tacking Sylvia, but whilst doing so had a brief but close view of a Hobby.

From the centre we found another Pintail, a Curlew a Green Sandpiper and had further views of at least one Hobby hunting over the lagoon.  A Buzzard was observed over Lax Hill and a Yellow-legged Gull flew over.