An afternoon at Rutland Water, Rutland - December 29, 2014

David and I went to Rutland Water this afternoon, which was my first time out birding since the 20^th.  On route we saw a Red Kite at the top of Wardley Hill and six Buzzards.  We went to the north arm where we hoped we would find yesterday’s Red-breasted Merganser but there was no sign but we did see one of the Great White Egrets and the Black-necked Grebe.  There was also a single female Goosander, a Little Egret, a Snipe and two Redshanks and the two Barnacle Geese were observed towards Dickinson’s Bay.

Teal feeding in the north arm

Drake Shoveler in the north arm

Great White Egret over the north arm

Great White Egret over the north arm

On reaching the Egleton Reserve we found lagoon one completely frozen and quickly set of to Shoveler hide on lagoon three.  We found a party of Goldfinch feeding in the alders on route and picked out a couple of Lesser Redpoll amongst them but a brief visit to grebe hide just confirmed that lagoon two was also frozen over.

On reaching Shoveler hide on lagoon three we were surprised to find most of the water was ice free and there were plenty of birds.  Amongst the more common wildfowl we counted twenty-two Pintail and found a couple of red-headed Smew and there was a Snipe, a Black-tailed Godwit and a Redshank feeding in the shallows.  A heard a Cetti’s Warbler calling to the left of the hide as was surprised to get some nice views before it flew in front of the hide and disappeared in the larger stand of reeds.

We continued on to Lapwing hide where there was some indication that water was being pumped into the reservoir as the exposed island in South Arm Three was beginning to become submerged.  There were two male and three female Goosander and we also found another couple of red-headed Smew just to the left of the hide.

With little else we moved onto sandpiper hide on lagoon four, which was also partially frozen over.  There were six Shelduck and another ten Pintail on the lagoon and male Sparrowhawk flew in and landed on the spit to the left of the hide for a few minutes and two Buzzards soared over the lagoon before drifting off.  There were fewer gulls in the pre-roost tonight, which were mainly Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls with a fewer Black-headed and Common Gulls but nothing unusual and so we eventually called it a day.

The light was fading quite fast but just after passing the turning to King’s Norton a Woodcock flew out of the wood on the left and proceeded to fly down the road in front of us before veering off to the right and disappearing.