I went to Eyebrook Reservoir
first this morning seeing a Buzzard and a couple of Kestrel on route.
I arrived at Eyebrook
Reservoir from the southern end and stopped near the gate to the fishing
lodge. There were twenty-nine Red-legged
Partridge feeding in the field on the opposite side of the road to the
reservoir and I also found three Redwings feeding in the hedgerow alongside the
field. Two Tree Sparrows flew over
calling from the old feeding station but there was little else and I moved on
to the island corral. From the corral I
found a pair of Pintail, two Red-crested Pochard, one being a male whilst the
other was uncertain as I was having to look into the sun, and two Little
Egrets. I moved on further seeing
another twenty-nine Red-legged Partridge before reaching the second
corral. The Red-legged Partridge numbers
are high as most have been released for shooting, which had now started and the
numbers are likely to drop significantly over the next few weeks. From the second corral I found a single
Little Stint, five Dunlin and a couple of Ruff and counted 419 Golden
Plovers. There was also a Red Kite
quartering the fields to the east of the reservoir. I continued on around the Rutland bank seeing
a Stoat at the roadside on route and a single male Stonechat near the inlet.
As I headed off towards
Rutland Water I was greeted with a sign saying road closed, which had been
positioned just beyond the Stoke Dry car park and making it difficult to
turn. I decided to continue and found
that I was able to get through to Uppingham and continue on to Rutland Water.
At Rutland Water I went to the
north arm and found a female Scaup in the fishponds and two Grey Wagtails flew
over before I walked down to the spit. I
soon located the two Black-necked Grebes and was then joined by Nigel and a
little later Erik. There were two
Barnacle Geese on the north shore and Nigel then found four Dunlin that were
also on the north shore. There were at
least seven Little Egrets in the north arm and two Red Kites, four Buzzards and
a Raven over Burley Wood. Erik and I
walked further into the arm to get a better view of the feeding wildfowl and
found an eclipse drake and a female Red-crested Pochard.
On reaching the Egleton Reserve
we went to Bird Watching Centre to view lagoon one before taking some
lunch. One of the Great White Egrets was
feeding to the right of the centre and there were five Little Egrets on the
lagoon. There were four Curlew and five
Redshanks feeding beyond the long island but we eventually finished up finding
eight of both species and there was also at least six Snipe. There was a good selection of wildfowl on the
lagoon but the highlight was nineteen Pintail and Erik found a couple of distant
Goldeneye in south arm three. A Small
Tortoiseshell and Brimstone were also observed.
After some lunch Erik and I
went down to Shoveler hide on lagoon three.
When we arrived the hide was pretty full as people were looking for the
Ring-necked Duck and Jack Snipe. There
were masses of wildfowl most of which were Tufted Duck, but there was also
smaller numbers of Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard and Pochard and I did
eventually see four Pintail, several Shovelers and four Goldeneye. The water had dropped slightly on the lagoon
and there were four Snipe, five Black-tailed Godwits, a Green Sandpiper and a
Redshank. A Marsh Harrier was observed over the reedbed and a Red Kite also
drifted over. The birds close to the
hide had been disturbed by workers on the bund of lagoon four but later there
was disturbance again but initially we couldn’t see anything. I then picked up a bird over the wood and
suspected it would be a Sparrowhawk but it soon became apparent that it was
small falcon. The flight was very direct
and away from us with periods of wing beast followed by short glides with some
undulation. Craig who had managed to get
his scope on it confirmed that it was a female Merlin, which is a good bird for
the site. Shortly after this Erik found
the Ring-necked Duck and eventually managed to get everyone on to it. It is now beginning to look quite a smart
bird but it can still be quite tricky to find mainly due the number of Tufted
Duck it associates with.
Redshank on lagoon three
I moved on to Dunlin hide with
Steve to view the gulls whilst Erik went back to the centre to get his tripod
repaired before coming back to join Steve and I. There were quite a few gulls present when we
arrived and the numbers gradually built during our time in the hide. All five common species were present in good numbers;
with a notable increase in Common Gulls.
There was also a single adult Mediterranean Gull, at least three
Yellow-legged Gulls and a single Caspian Gull, which I thought was the same
bird as on Saturday. There was also a
couple of interesting birds that showed Caspian characteristic, one was
considered to look good except for the bill being too short, whilst the other
was considered not to be a Caspian as the head shape was not right, although
the bill looked good. With the light
fading we eventually called it a day and headed off back to the car park.
No comments:
Post a Comment