I met Ken at Eyebrook
Reservoir this morning as there had been a male Velvet Scoter present
yesterday. We walked the short distance
to the fishing lodge and the dam but as we approached the lodge there was no
sign but I suddenly noticed it swimming out from the lodge. It swam quite a long way and went passed the
tower so we went onto the dam for a better look and found it swimming back
towards the lodge. I decided to go back
as I was hoping to get some photos, although the light was pretty poor. When I got to the other side of the lodge it
was back fairly close to the shore and I walked closer under the cover of a
transformer. As I stepped out from
behind the transformer it was clearly aware of my presence and initially seemed
to swimming out again. However it didn’t
go too far and gradually came back in close and I was able to start to
photograph it. Neither Ken nor I had
seen one quite as close as this and it was quite a stunning bird being mainly
sooty black with the white secondaries visible on the closed wing and a small
flash of white just under the eye. The
bill was also quite colourful: the black feathering almost reached the
nostrils, the sides were orange with a narrow and intermittent blackish edge
and there was a white rectangle along the culmen ridge and the nail was
pinkish.
Velvet Scoter
We eventually walked back to
the cars seeing a couple of Tree Sparrows and a Little Egret. We stopped briefly at the fence at the
northern end of the reservoir finding a drake and red-headed Smew and seven
Dunlin and sixteen Golden Plovers flew over.
Ken had not seen the Rutland
Water Green-winged Teal as yet and so we drove to the sailing club and walked
the short distance to the bay that the teal had been frequenting. There was just a drake and two female Teal in
the bay today with no sign of the Green-winged Teal. There were a few Wigeon and Goldeneye in the
bay and three Cormorants and numerous Lapwings on the pontoon. Beyond the bay there were several Great
Crested Grebes, a few Tufted Ducks and two more Goldeneye. As we walked back to the cars we had a nice
few of a Green Woodpecker. Calling at
Normanton we had the expected Mandarin, a male and a female, and there was also
a small party of birds feeding in the copse, mainly Long-tailed and Blue Tits
but there was also a Goldcrest, Coal Tit and Treecreeper.
Male Mandarin Duck
Female Mandarin Duck
Wigeon near Normanton Church
Drake Wigeon near Normanton Church
On arrival at the dam a Red
Kite was observed perched in a tree just to the south but there were far fewer
wildfowl than on my last visit. A scan
from the dam produced a female Common Scoter and an adult Yellow-legged Gull
but otherwise there were just a few Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye and Great
Crested Grebe.
A quick scan from Barnsdale
produced the three Black-necked Grebes but we couldn’t locate any of the Long-tailed
Ducks. We decided to go end of the
cottage road where we gain soon located the Black-necked Grebes but the
Long-tailed Ducks were proving just as difficult. We were about to leave when Ken noticed a
bird dive that was quite close to us, which turned out to be an immature
Long-tailed Duck. It is quite amazing
how illusive these birds can be and difficult to know why we hadn’t seen it
before.
On arrival at the dam a Red
Kite was observed perched in a tree just to the south but there were far fewer
wildfowl than on my last visit. A scan
from the dam produced a female Common Scoter and an adult Yellow-legged Gull
but otherwise there were just a few Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye and Great
Crested Grebe.
A quick scan from Barnsdale
produced the three Black-necked Grebes but we couldn’t locate any of the Long-tailed
Ducks. We decided to go end of the
cottage road where we gain soon located the Black-necked Grebes but the
Long-tailed Ducks were proving just as difficult. We were about to leave when Ken noticed a
bird dive that was quite close to us, which turned out to be an immature
Long-tailed Duck. It is quite amazing
how illusive these birds can be and difficult to know why we hadn’t seen it
before.
Lagoon one water level had
dropped considerably and there were plenty wildfowl, mainly Wigeon and Teal but
there was also Gadwall, Mallard, Shoveler, Tufted Duck and at least fifty
Pintail. There were four Golden Plover
resting with Lapwings on one of the islands and at least three Dunlin feeding
actively amongst the flock. Three Little
Egrets and two male and brown-headed Goosander could be seen on lagoon two and
three other male Goosander flew over. As
Ken and I were about to depart a Red Kite flew over, which caused some
disturbance and a flock of c.200 Golden Plover flew over but didn’t come down. The walk to shoveler hide on lagoon three
didn’t produce anything of note and on arrival at the hide it was rather quiet
on the lagoon. There were three drake
Pintail in front of the hide and we eventually found a drake and three
red-headed Smew and three male and a brown-headed Goosander. Two Buzzards were observed towards Burley
Wood and I had brief views of a Bittern flying over the reedbed but only one
other person in the hide managed to get on it.
I had noticed two Redshanks just after arriving in the hide but just
before we departed there were four. A
quick visit to sandpiper hide produced only two Shelduck of interest.
The light was fading fast as
we returned to the centre but sixteen Curlew were observed on the lagoon and
the Barn Owl was seen a couple of times at the nest box but on both occasions
it re-entered the box. Steve picked up a
Merlin flying high over harrier hide but it dropped below the skyline before
anyone else was able to get on it. He
then saw it again over snipe hide and I managed to get on it just before it
disappeared below the skyline again. It
was not seen again before we departed with the light almost gone.
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