I went to Eyebrook Reservoir
first today seeing nothing of note on route.
On arrival the cloud was
starting to break but it was cool in the brisk northerly wind. I stopped at the inlet bridge briefly where I
had views of a Willow Warbler, Blackcap and Whitethroat. There was more exposed mud today at the inlet
and a Green Sandpiper was actively feeding along the edges and there were four
Shelduck resting on the mud and three Common Terns feeding over the water. A Red Kite and two Buzzards were soaring over
a distant hill top but generally it was rather quiet.
I moved onto the Rutland Water
and after speaking to Steve went to lagoon four, seeing a Hobby on route, to
help with the wildfowl count. There
wasn’t an awful lot on the lagoon today except for eleven Little Egrets, an
Oystercatcher, four Ringed Plovers and two Yellow-legged Gulls. Having visited both dunlin and plover hides
on lagoon four I went into bittern hide where the vegetation had just been cut
and so it appeared rather quiet. There
were a few Common Terns over the lagoon and several Reed Warblers but nothing
else of note. From shoveler hide, also
on lagoon three, there appeared to be more Gadwall than of late I there was a
drake Wigeon amongst them, which was the first for a while. A single Shelduck flew in and was rather
vocal for a while but eventually just settled down to feed.
Common Tern over lagoon four
I walked on towards lapwing
hide but just called at smew and crake hides but saw nothing of note, except
for a Yellow-legged Gull over smew hide.
Third-year Yellow-legged Gull
I called at buzzard hide on
lagoon three but like everywhere today it appeared quiet.
As I started to walk back to
the centre I met Ken, Steve and Terry and we walked back together along the
summer trail. Lots of blue damselflies,
both Azure and Common, and we also saw a single Emerald Damselfly as well as
Blood-vein and Common Wave moths. Steve
also found a rather large caterpillar that turned out to be a Drinker Moth and
there were a couple of Chimney Sweeper moths over the meadow as we approached
the centre.
Drinker caterpillar
After some lunch Ken and I
went to snipe hide on the wet meadow.
Steve and Terry had been in the hide earlier and couldn’t find the brood
of three Avocets. When we arrived there
was an adult on the flash but again there was no sign of the young
Avocets. I could hear the ‘chip-chip’
call of a Redshank and whilst scanning I noticed a young Redshank running up
one of the stretches of water and then found an adult nearby. The lone Avocet then flew towards harrier
hide and joined a second bird. We
decided to go to harrier where we found four adult Avocets and one tiny young,
which was not one of the three young from the flash. As I scanned further around the scrape I
noticed a large chick, which was probably one of the three from the flash. Both Ken and I scanned the area several times
but could only find one of the original three.
They were all present last night and clearly something had occurred
either during the night or early this morning.
The two adults had clearly moved with the remaining young to the
opposite end of the wet meadow. Yet
again Avocets appear to be really struggling for any young to fledge. A second Redshank was found on the meadow but
there was little else of note.
On reaching the car park we
decided to go to the north arm to look for the Glossy Ibis. We found the Glossy Ibis to the south of the
path but it was quite difficult to see as it fed amongst the Juncus. We moved to try and gain some height and
could see the bird preening on the shore.
A fishing boat drifted closer to it and it took to flight and headed off
towards the Egleton Reserve and presumable came down on one of the lagoons or
wet meadow. We also saw two Spotted
Flycatchers whilst we were in the north arm.
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