I had decided to spend the day
at Rutland Water and to do so, on the Egleton Reserve. I had three Buzzards and two Red Kites on
route over to the reserve and on arrival went straight to buzzard hide on
lagoon three. On Saturday there had been
a lot of birds in front of this hide but there were far fewer today. One of the first birds I noticed was a
Bittern sitting on the edge of the reeds soaking up the early morning
sunshine. The three male Pintail present
on this lagoon were still present and a Water Rail was observed feeding quite
close to the hide but there was no sign of any Smew today. A Kingfisher was perched in the tree to the
left of the hide but unfortunately I didn’t notice until it flew out and
disappearing to the east.
Cormorant on lagoon three
Grey Heron on lagoon three
Grey Heron on lagoon three
Grey Heron on lagoon three
Mute Swan alighting on lagoon three
Drake Teal on lagoon three
Water Rail from buzzard hide
Water Rail from buzzard hide
Water Rail from buzzard hide
Water Rail from buzzard hide
Fieldfare close to shoveler hide
I moved on to smew hide where
there was very little, although I possibly had a brief view of a Chiffchaff but
I was unable to confirm it. There was
nothing from crake hide but I did see a Kingfisher from lapwing hide, which was
presumably the same bird I had seen from buzzard hide. I then visited plover hide on lagoon four
seeing just three Shelduck with very little else and from bittern hide I did
find a drake Smew on lagoon three and also a Green Sandpiper at the back of the
lagoon.
Wren from smew hide
I walked back to the car park
lunch having some nice views of a Jay close to redshank hide.
After lunch Nigel joined me
and we went to the centre to view lagoon one.
There were only thirty-six Pintail on view today, which was a
considerable reduction since Sunday. There
were ten Curlew at the back of the lagoon with two more feeding on the southern
edge and three Redshanks were feeding to the right. It is strange that how a few weeks ago the
large island was covered in birds and yet now there are very few, although there
were still plenty of birds on the water and other islands.
Nigel and I moved off heading
to shoveler hide on lagoon three but called at grebe hide to look for the
Stonechats but there was no sign, although there were another five Pintail.
On reaching shoveler hide
there was now a male and two red-head Smew at the back of the lagoon where
there was also four Redshank and two Water Rails were observed along the edge
of the reeds. Closer, three Snipe were
observed amongst the decaying vegetation on the near island and a Red Kite was
observed over the north arm. I called at
buzzard hide again where I had further views of the Water Rail and saw the
Bittern again as it flew quite a long way over the reebed before dropping in.
I spent the last forty minutes
or so back at the centre but other than a couple of Curlew there was little
else and I called it a day.
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