Dave and I were out without
Roger today as he was off to Trinidad and Tobago for a Naturetreck holiday with
his wife.
Eyebrook Reservoir was our
first port of call but it was rather quiet and felt quite cold in the brisk
southwest wind. The two Little Owls were
in the old oak along the entrance road and the only other birds of note were
four Shelduck and a Curlew. The good
news is that the water level has dropped and there was a nice area of mud but
only the Curlew was on it.
We had met Malcolm at Eyebrook
Reservoir and he went towards the dam at Rutland Water, whilst Dave and I
headed for the north arm. It was
slightly warmer in the north arm as we were able to escape the cool wind. Having walked to the spit of the western end
Dave immediately found the female Red-breasted Merganser amongst a party of Coot
but initially there was no sign any of the Long-tailed Ducks or the Slavonian
Grebe. Dave then found the Slavonian
Grebe, which was now beginning to moult into summer plumage and as I was
scanning the west side there was suddenly circa fifty Sand Martin feeding over
the water and shortly afterwards I found the two immature Long-tailed Ducks but
we couldn’t find the female although it was seen later by other birders. There were still two Barnacle Geese on the
north shore and we also saw five Oystercatchers, four Curlew and three
Redshanks. There were three Red Kites
and a couple of Buzzards over Burley Wood and a Kestrel was also seen
briefly. My phone then rang and it was
Malcolm informing us that he had a Wheatear on the dam. We headed off to the dam but as we were
approaching Barnsdale Malcolm called again to say it had been flushed and had
flown over the road into one of the fields.
He then called back to say he had found it in the field and would wait
for us and try and keep it in view. We
then ran into a traffic jam at Whitwell and so I informed Malcolm who had lost
the Wheatear and was going to head off to the north arm.
We diverted towards Exton and
then cut back to Empingham seeing fifteen Fallow Deer in a roadside field on
route. Happily on reaching Empingham
there was no traffic and we were soon at the dam. The field into which the Wheatear had flown
didn’t look very suitable and so went to the dam. As we scanned the dam I thought I saw it land
at the bottom of the slope but couldn’t see anything from where we were. We walked down the grass bank towards the
area where the bird had landed and found the male Wheatear ahead of us. We then had some nice brief views before it
flew further towards Sykes Lane and so we returned to the car.
Sykes Lane car park was solid
with vehicles and many were queuing to get in and there was obviously some
event taking place. We therefore decided
to go along the southern side to reach the Egleton Reserve.
Having checked the log book in
the centre we set off to snipe hide on the wet meadow. We saw very little on route, just hearing at
least three Chiffchaffs and forth just as we approached the hide. There was a single Redshank on the flash to
the left of the hide and a couple of Shelduck but nothing else. I found the Black-tailed Godwit and two more
Shelduck on lagoon one and two Red Kites passed over the centre with one
eventually coming quite close to the hide and a Little Egret also arrived and
started feeding.
Red Kite from snipe hide
Lapwing from snipe hide
As we left the hide to return
to the car park we had brief views of the Chiffchaff and a Long-tailed Tit
posed nicely allowing me to photograph it.
Long-tailed Tit
Whilst Dave and I were having lunch Ken arrived and we all then went off towards lagoon three on the northern edge of the reserve. The water level on lagoon three was very high and consequently there were not too many birds but we did stick it out for a while and had two Shelduck and two Oystercatcher fly over, whilst a third Oystercatcher was on one of the islands. It had been bright and sunny whilst we were in the hide but some rather nasty looking weather approached from the west and finally decided to move to sandpiper hide on lagoon four.
Great Crested Grebe on lagoon three
Cormorant over lagoon three
Greylag Goose alighting lagoon three
Drake Gadwall on lagoon three
Female Gadwall on lagoon three
Moorhen on lagoon three
The wind had really freshened
and it wasn’t too long before it started raining and it felt cold and miserable
until the shower moved away.
There was a single Avocet on
lagoon four and a small party of waders contained three Ringed Plover and nine
Dunlin and there was also at least four Redshank scattered around the
lagoon. There were twenty Shelduck also
on the lagoon and a single Little Egret but very little else. After the shower had passed we had a least
five Red Kites and four Buzzard over Burley and I picked up a single Raven to
the left of the house. We finally
decided to go back to the centre but other than the Black-tailed Godwit and a
Little Egret there was little on the lagoon.
There were three Buzzards over Hambleton, two more over Brown’s Island
and another passed over the lagoon but eventually they also went quiet and we
called it a day.
Grey Heron on lagoon one
Grey Heron over lagoon one
Carrion Crow from the centre
Perhaps not a great day but
the first Wheatear of the year and the Red-breasted Merganser being a good
county year tick were pleasing and it was also nice to see so many Sand
Martins.
No comments:
Post a Comment