I went to Eyebrook Reservoir
first today as there had been five Black-necked Grebes and a Little Gull
present yesterday. A Little Owl was
observed near Slawston on route but nothing else of note was seen.
At Eyebrook Reservoir there
was no sign of the grebes or the Little Gull and a single Dunlin and five
Shelduck were the only birds of note.
I moved onto Normanton at
Rutland Water but the only bird of note was a singing Chiffchaff. The dam produced absolutely nothing being
very quiet but from Barnsdale I did see the female Long-tailed Duck and the
Great Northern Diver. On reaching the Egleton Reserve I checked out the feeding
area where there was a Bank Vole below the left hand feeders. I then walked towards Lax Hill seeing several
Chiffchaffs and a single male Blackcap before reaching snipe hide. From snipe hide on the wet meadow there was a
single Green Sandpiper and two Redshanks on the flash and Little Egret was
observed feeding on the wet meadow and a single Oystercatcher flew in and circa
forty Sand Martins were visible over lagoon two. A single drake Red-crested Pochard from
harrier hide was worthy of note and I saw a Chiffchaff, Blackcap and two male
and a female Bullfinch in the hand near fieldfare. There was also at least three Willow Warblers
singing between harrier and fieldfare hides and I managed brief views of one.
Bank Vole
Chiffchaff
I walked back to tern hide on
lagoon six where there were a couple of Shelduck and a pair of
Oystercatcher. I saw the Manton Bay
Osprey from the footpath leading to kingfisher hide and then went to Shelduck
hide on lagoon six. There were three
Oystercatcher and several Shelduck on the lagoon but little else and the 360° produced nothing else. Whilst I was in the 360 hide Steve called to
say there was Sandwich and Common Terns at Eyebrook Reservoir, so I returned to
the car park. Before setting off I
checked with Steve that they were still there and the Common Tern had flown but
the Sandwich Tern looked settled. Pat
and I therefore drove the short distance to Eyebrook Reservoir but both had
disappeared when we arrived. Andy Mackay
was on the southern back and he called me to say that he had the tern flying
high to the north. Pat and I were unable
to pick it up and after some lunch we returned to Rutland Water.
Lapwing on lagoon six
On getting back to Rutland
Water I went to the centre and Pat went off towards fieldfare to look for the
Willow Warblers. There were eleven
Curlew on the long island but there was no sign of the long staying
Black-tailed Godwit, which was probably out of sights on the far side. A tweet from Andy arrived indicating that
there was a Sandwich Tern on the island at Eyebrook Reservoir so I went back
again only to arrive a couple of minutes after it had flown off high to the
south. Had the early bird returned or
was this a second is something we will never know.
I decided to spend the rest of
the afternoon at Eyebrook Reservoir but there were no further sightings of any
terns. A Red Kite flew directly over the
island and a couple of Sand Martins were observed passing through at the
northern end. From the bridge a couple
of Snipe, an Osprey fishing and two Treecreeper were observed. There were also numerous small fish in the
stream, presumed to be roach and a grass snake was observed swimming across the
stream. A Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler
were heard frequently but neither was observed during my stay and I eventually
called it a day.
Red Kite
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