I had decided to visit
Normanton at Rutland Water first today in the hope of finding some Mandarin
that had been seen on Sunday’s wildfowl count.
It had been very cold overnight and the car was indicating 5°C on route and so I was taking it pretty
slow during the first part of the journey.
When I arrived at Normanton it was still very cold but the sun was shining
and there was very little wind. Having
parked up I walked through the car park before viewing the fishing boat harbour
but there was no sign of the Mandarin there or a little further on when they
are also seen. I decided to continue to
the church to view the main water there were a few Wigeon, Mallard and Tufted
Duck close to the shore and several Great Crested Grebes and Cormorants further
out on the water and just beyond the church there were more of the same and
then I noticed a pair of Mandarin, which were just beyond a group of
Mallard. I walked onto the path around
the church and set the scope up to view the main water, which was like a sheet
of glass. I then noticed the Mandarin
take to flight and heading west. As I
scanned the water for a diver I saw Steve and Terry on the shore at Whitwell
and with no sign of a diver I gave Steve a call. They had seen the Red-necked Grebe along the northern
shore of the peninsula but they also had not been able to locate a diver. I made several more scans of the water before
heading back and flushed a Grey Wagtail from the shore close to the church. As I approached the end of the bay I noticed
a bird just off the fishing boat harbour and on raising the bins confirmed my
suspicions that it was one of the Great Northern Divers. I watched as it dived several times and on
each occasion it had moved some distance into the south arm. I called Steve to make him aware of the diver
and then continued back to the car.
I drove to the dam hoping to
see a Skylark, which has been quite scarce locally this year, but several had
been present near the dam last week. Steve
stopped as he and Terry were heading for Normanton to tell me several Whooper
Swans had flown over with two grey geese and had headed west down the north arm
just after I had spoke to him. He had
tried to call me but it went straight to voicemail and obviously they weren’t
in view too long. I had no luck with any
Skylark and suspect they had moved again in the recent cold snap. Steve then called to say that the two European
White-fronted Geese were visible on the end of the Hambleton Peninsula. I drove back to the sailing club, seeing a
Sparrowhawk on route and met Dave Grey as I parked. We walked to the bay east of the sailing club
to view the peninsula. There were a
party of Greylag Geese in the first field and I soon located the two
White-fronts at the right hand of the flock.
Dave and I then scanned for the diver and I eventually picked it up
quite close to eastern end of the dam.
Dave and I then moved off to
Dickinson’s Bay where we soon found the two Black-necked Grebes. A Redshank was on the near shore, two Red
Kites were observed one to the left of Burley House but the other passing over
the access road and a Buzzard was seen as it dropped onto the ground from a
tree and then returning to its perch a few minutes later. With little else I went to Egleton for lunch.
Mike followed me into the car
park and Pat arrived whilst we were having lunch after which we all went to the
centre. We could see that both lagoons
one and two were almost completely frozen over and so we set off to lagoon
three. A Curlew flew over the large
meadow as we walked to Shoveler hide and on arriving we found that lagoon three
was also frozen. There were eleven
Curlew on one of the exposed islands and we eventually also saw five Snipe and
three Redshanks. Two Shelduck flew in and
a pair of Pintail flew over on a couple of occasions but with little else we
moved onto Lapwing hide.
As we approached the hide two
drakes and a female Goosander flew over and on entering the hide we found that
South Arm Three was completely ice free.
There were plenty of birds feeding on the water and we found a male and
four red-headed Smew and another male and female Goosander.
As we walked back to the
centre we bumped into Steve and Terry who informed us that they had seen
several Siskin towards the far end of the summer trail. Pat and spent quite some time looking for
them but all I could see were Blue Tits, although Pat thought he might have had
a Siskin at one point but we were unable to locate it.
On reaching the car park I
decided to go to the north arm where I found the Great White Egret feeding in
the fishponds but as I called Steve to make him aware it flew off and came down
in the north arm nearer to the road, where surprisingly it couldn’t be seen.
It had been a cracking day
weather wise, albeit a little cold, that had produced a good array of birds and
saw another couple of Buzzards on route home.
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