A day at Rutland Water, Rutland - December 16, 2014

I went straight to the Egleton Reserve at Rutland Water today seeing a Red Kite near Slawston and a Buzzard flying over the road between Preston and the reservoir.

It was a bright and sunny, if cold, morning and after checking the log book at the centre I set off towards Lax Hill and called at Snipe hide on the Wet Meadow.  There was very little with a Little Egret being the best although I counted twenty-four Pintail and fifteen Goosanders on the lagoon before moving onto harrier hide.  A female Stonechat was observed briefly at the top of one of the hawthorn bushes before it dropped behind another and I didn’t see it again.  With little else I continued on to Fieldfare hide where I found another two Pintail and a Redshank.  There was large concentration of birds just to the right of the hide but they were mainly Wigeon, Tufted Duck and Coot.  There was also a few Goldeneye and Great Crested Grebes scattered over South Arm Three but nothing else of note was observed.  On reaching Gadwall hide I was a little disappointed as there were few birds, whilst on Saturday there had been masses.  As I scanned around I could see that there was a large concentration of birds near the Lyndon Centre, which appeared to mainly Coot and were probably the birds seen near Gadwall on Saturday.

I could see the shoreline in front of Goldeneye hide as I approached Lax Hill and there appeared to be very little and so I went straight to Robin hide.  On opening the flaps all of the feeders were empty but unlike last time there was food in the dustbin and so I filled the bucket and at least partially filled the feeders.  I went back into the hide and was surprised to see how quickly birds began to come to the feeders and with about fifteen minutes I had seen quite a few Blue and Great Tits, several Chaffinch, Robin and Dunnock as well as a Coal Tit and a Marsh Tit.  I continued round Lax Hill and on viewing South Arm Two and Heron Bay could see that there was very little and so went straight back towards the 360° hide on lagoon five.  As I walked alongside lagoon eight there were two Fieldfares in the bushes, which turned out to be my only sightings of the day.  On reaching the 360 hide there was very little on the lagoon with just a few Wigeon and there was no geese flock visible in the fields at the back.  There was some activity at the feeding station but I only saw Blue and Great Tits, Chaffinch and Dunnock, although a Great Spotted Woodpecker was observed in a tree on the edge of the small wood.  I called at Snipe hide again on my return where there were now seven Curlew but three of these flew off as a small aircraft went over.

Curlew on the wet meadow with one keeping an eye on the aircraft

I made my way back to the car park for some lunch before going into the centre to have a look over lagoon one.  Other then the Pintail I couldn’t find very much on lagoon one and set off towards lagoon three.

Long-tailed Tit near the centre

In the first few meadows there were a few thrushes feeding, mainly Blackbird but also a few Redwings and a couple of Song Thrushes.  I had heard a Water Rail calling close to the small stream that goes under the footpath near badger hide during my last couple of visits and today it showed briefly.  I checked the alders alongside the track for Siskin and Redpoll but there were very few birds seen, just more Blackbird, Robin and Chaffinches.

Redwing

On reaching Shoveler hide on lagoon three some other birders were clearly watching something, which turned out to be a female Marsh Harrier with two green wing-tags.  These birds apparently are from the Holkham area in Norfolk and it was first ever December sighting of Marsh Harrier in the counties.  Another Water Rail also provided some nice views alongside the reedbed to the right of the hide.  There were a couple of Redshank on the lagoon and I then found a couple of Dunlin on an island and two Snipe on another.  As I scanned the wildfowl I located a red-headed Smew just beyond the main raft of commoner species.  Ken had joined me in the hide after his short break in Tenerife and after a while he was feeling the cold, although it was less cold than it had been of late.  A Sparrowhawk flew over the lagoon but yet again there was no sign of the Bittern on what appeared to be a perfect afternoon for it to show on the edge of the reeds.

Steve and Terry had also joined us in the hide and Terry picked up two Ravens flying west over the north arm before Steve and Terry moved off to sandpiper hide.

It wasn’t too long afterwards when Ken and I gave up on the Bittern and I went to sandpiper hide on lagoon four whilst Ken went back to the centre to try and get warm.

When I entered sandpiper hide Steve and Terry were still there and informed me that they had seen a Yellow-legged Gull but that it had flown off to the right with Common Gulls.  Shortly afterwards Steve re-found it between island six and seven but a little further away than most of the gulls.  I soon found it but it spent most of its time facing away and in now what was pretty poor light.  Terry then departed whilst Steve and I continued to scan the gulls and I noticed a probable second-winter gull on the water that I considered might be a Caspian.  I informed Steve of the find for him to say it was the Yellow-legged Gull seen earlier but he obviously had continued to watch it has he suddenly said he wasn’t sure about it being a Yellow-legged Gull.  It had got out of the water and was now visible on the edge of island seven.  Apparently when he had first seen it he thought it might be a Caspian but had ruled it out on head-shape as head on it looked pretty broad.  However now it was out of the water it looked rather long-legged and the bill was right for Caspian but other features didn’t fit and we eventually decided it would be better left as undetermined and possibly a hybrid.  With the light fading I called a day and left Steve peering into the now quite poor light.