I was out on my own today in
what initially were pretty poor conditions.
I went to Eye Brook Reservoir first and went into the hide to look for
the female Ring-necked Duck. There were
plenty of duck that were fairly close to the hide and on the third scan I found
the Ring-necked Duck and also two juvenile Goosanders.
There was a good selection of
commoner wildfowl but Wigeon and Tufted Duck predominated, although there was
also a nice number of Pochard. A Little
Egret was on the island and there were several Cormorants scattered
around. I had also seen thirty
Red-legged Partridges as I approached the hide, which is a good indication that
significant numbers had been released.
Birding elsewhere around the reservoir was difficult due to the weather
and seeing just another Little Egret and a Red Kite I decided to go to Rutland
Water.
When I arrived in the car park
at Egleton the heavens opened and I stayed in the car for while until the rain
eased before heading to the Bird Watching Centre. As it was still raining, heavily at times, I
made a brief visit to the feeding station where a male Sparrowhawk made a brief
visit. I remained in the viewing area and counted twenty-six Pintail on the
lagoon and found twelve Snipe and four Curlew.
I eventually went back to the car for lunch just as the rain ceased and
the sky cleared and there was now bright sunlight.
Ken arrived whilst I was
having my lunch and afterwards we set off towards lagoon three, seeing a
juvenile female Sparrowhawk on route. However the wind had increased significantly
and the clouds had returned, although we had no further rain. Initially we went to crake hide where we had
a drake Pintail, three Little Egrets and three Redshanks and a Munjac provided
some nice views in one of the brief sunny spells.
Juvenile female Sparrowhawk over the Egleton Meadows
Little Egret from crake hide
Little Egret from crake hide
Little Egret from crake hide
Little Egret from crake hide
Redshank from crake hide
Redshank from crake hide
Munjac from crake hide
Munjac from crake hide
From crake hide we visited
lapwing hide but found very little, another drake Pintail, three Goldeneye and
a distant Red Kite being the best.
We went into shoveler hide on
lagoon three where there were fewer birds today. There were nine Red-crested Pochard, including
six males that looked superb in the brief spells of sunlight and three Pintail
but little else. Whilst in the hide I
received a text that there was a Shag at the dam. We decided to go for it as it was a county
year tick and the last one I had seen in the counties was at Rutland Water in
November 2007.
When we arrived at the dam we
saw Bob who had seen it distantly from the pumping station. We walked to the pumping station and found
the bird still about half-way along the dam.
As it was rather distant and appeared to be quite close to the dam we
decided that we would walk along the dam to get closer. When we thought we were quite close we looked
over the dam and immediately found a Great Crested Grebe that the Shag had been
close to but there was no sign of the Shag.
Despite an extensive search we were unable to find although it was seen
on the island in south arm three briefly before it flew off with a Cormorant
down towards Manton Bay.
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