Monday 19 January 2015

A morning at Rutland Water, Rutland - January 18, 2015

I was back at Rutland Water with David to help with the monthly wildfowl count and we met Erik in the Lyndon car park at 08:00 to count south arm two and Manton Bay.

We walked to the new Shallow Water hide, seeing six Red-legged Partridge on route, before commencing the count.  The new hide is not quite finished and is also locked but we were able to stand in front of it without causing any disturbance.  There were fourteen Dunlin to the left of the hide and we found a pair of Pintail and two male and four female Goosander amongst the more common wildfowl.  A brief visit to Tufted Duck hide to complete the Manton Bay count produced little else, two Egyptian Geese being the highlight on the bund.

Deep Water hide seemed like a good place to count South Arm Two from where there far more birds and we found three Scaup , two males and a female/immature, and a drake Goosander and there was also a couple of Redshanks on the far shore.

On getting back to the centre we observed the feeding station for a few minutes where we saw both Willow and Marsh Tit and a single Tree Sparrow and also two more Scaup.

After handing in the count figures at the centre we walked to lagoon three but there was no sign of the Jack Snipe today, although I did see at least eight Snipe.  There were three Pintail, a male and five red-headed Smew, two male and three female Goosanders and a Redshank on the lagoon.  David was hoping for the Green Sandpiper but there was no sign whilst we were in the hide and with geese in the field behind the lagoon we walked back to the centre and then drove to the fisherman’s track on the Hambleton Road.  We walked down the track to view the field but there was no sign of any geese and there were only a few Greylags on the water.


We moved to the end of the cottage road to view the north arm but added very little, the two Barnacle Geese and another Redshank being the best.

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