I was helping with a wildfowl
count at Rutland Water this morning but made a brief visit to Eyebrook
Reservoir first. One of the Little Owls
was at in the old oak as I approached the reservoir and after parking I could
see that there were quite a few waders at the inlet. As Scanned through them with the scope and
there was a Little Ringed Plover, twenty Ringed Plovers, four Sanderling, six
Dunlin and a Turnstone. As I started to
go through them again they took to flight and as they hadn’t returned within a
few minutes I headed for Rutland Water.
On arrival at the fishponds I
called Steve to see if he knew which areas we were counting. He had already made a start and was on lagoon
four and we agreed that I would do South Arm Three and lagoon one and he would
do lagoon two, three and four. Tim then
called and was ok with what we had decided but was waiting for Nigel to make
contact as he was hoping he would be doing the new lagoons.
When I arrived in the south
arm there was a Whitethroat singing as I parked but there was very little in
the south arm, just a few Mute Swan, Canada Geese, Egyptian Geese, a single
Pochard, Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe and Coot. On lagoon one there was a pair of Shelduck, a
few Shoveler and a Wigeon but otherwise just more of what was in the south
arm. I walked to Snipe hide on the Wet
Meadow to view the backsides of the islands but I added very little. The pair of Pintail was still on the Wet
Meadow flash and I saw my only Teal of the day on the flash as well as a couple
of Redshank. Nigel joined me in the hide
and he had already counted the new lagoons and the Wet Meadow was his last area
to count. He had seen nothing of note on
the lagoons just several
Oystercatchers and a couple of Redshank. As we were talking I saw nine Black-tailed
Godwits drop onto lagoon one, two of which were still pretty much in winter
plumage. I called Steve to make him aware
and it turned out he was rather conveniently placed to see them as he was in
the centre.
I walked back to the car for
some lunch before walking to sandpiper hide on lagoon four with Steve hoping
that the now increasing showers would drop something in. We soon found several Ringed Plovers and
Dunlin and a Turnstone, which was pretty much what Steve had seen earlier. However the number of both Ringed Plover and
Dunlin appeared to increase during the afternoon and we eventually counted
seventeen Ringed Plover and twenty-four Dunlin.
There was also two Oystercatcher, two Little Ringed Plover and a
Redshank and amongst the small number of Common Terns we found three Arctic
Terns.
Birds of prey were a little
disappointing today with just two Red Kites, a single Buzzard and two Kestrels
observed.
As the number of waders
appeared to have increased I thought it would be a good idea to call in at
Eyebrook Reservoir again on my way home.
I drove around to the northern coral where there was a Little Ringed
Plover, ten Ringed Plovers, three Sanderling and two Dunlin and from the island
coral there were two Little Ringed Plovers, a Ringed Plover, a Sanderling and
three Dunlin. As at Rutland Water there
were plenty of Swifts and hirundines with all three species present but other
then four Common Terns there was little else and I made my home.
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