A day’s birding in Leicestershire & Rutland - November 26, 2013

I went to Dean’s Lane, which is just north of Beacon Hill and overlooks the Trent Valley.  There had been Brambling and Crossbill reported recently and I was hoping that I might see them.  I did find a single Brambling but there was no sign of any Crossbill.  There were also plenty of Redwings and a few Fieldfares in the area.

From Dean’s Lane I called at Swithland Reservoir where there were still at least six Scaup on the northern section, although they were difficult to count as some at least were constantly diving.  There was also a male and six brown-head Goosanders on the northern section.  One of the Peregrines was sitting in the normal trees and two Ravens and a Grey Wagtail flew over.  There was a party of circa fifty Fieldfare flying over the southern section and eight Redwings were observed near the dam.

I eventually decided to move on to Rutland Water and after some lunch met Ken in the car park.  We went in the centre where we found six male Goosanders and I counted fifty Pintail.  I then saw two waders drop in that I thought were Grey Plover and a quick scan of the large island confirmed my initial identification.  They didn’t stay too long and after looking for a single Curlew for a brief time we were unable to find them.  The male Stonechat was then found some distance away as it fed in the area in front of mallard hide.

I had spoke to Tim to find out if there had been any further sightings of Woodcock as I still needed it for the year.  He said there hadn’t but suggested that we looked at the area close to goldeneye hide.  Ken and I decided it would be a good idea and Nigel decided to join us.  When we arrived at Lax Hill, Tim was there and he escorted us into an area that is not public access.  We hadn’t walked too far when a Woodcock flushed from the vegetation at the side of the path, success at last with this illusive species.

After spending some time in Robin hide where we had nice views of a Great Spotted Woodpecker on the feeders, Ken and I then continued over Lax Hill and went to heron hide overlooking Heron Bay and the south arm towards Manton Bay.  There were hundreds, if not thousands, of gulls in south arm two that were mainly Common Gulls, although there were also a few Black-headed Gulls.  I picked up a bird that was clearly different and we agreed that it had white primaries but it was facing away most of the time and its head was on its back.  It didn’t look right for a Mediterranean Gull and eventually it picked its head up briefly and we could see that it was in fact an aberrant Black-headed Gull.

We walked back to the centre where we found seven male and two brown-headed Goosanders, nine Curlews and a Redshank.  A Barn Owl was also seen as it came out of the nest box near lagoon two.  It flew a short distance to a tree where it sat for quite some time before returning to the nest box.  This was my first sighting of Barn Owl on the reserve since May 9^th after what appears to have been a poor summer for the species.

Not a totally successful day but one with several highlights including a year tick.