I arrived at the northern
approach road to Eyebrook Reservoir but yet again there was no sign of the
Little Owls and so I continued and parked overlooking the inlet, seeing a Green
Woodpecker as I approached the parking spot.
There appeared to be fewer birds at the inlet today and very few
Lapwings, which was not a good sign and the only waders I could find were three
Little Ringed Plovers. There were
several Little Egrets feeding in the feeder stream and the female Shelduck was
attending the now well developed seven young.
The only Common Tern I found was resting amongst the small flock of
Black-headed Gulls and a single Great Black-backed Gull on the mud. There were a few hirundines over the water,
which included both Sand and House Martin and there was a small party of circa
ten Swallow feeding around one of the roadside trees. Feeding higher than the martins were at least
eight Swift but the majority of these seem to have already moved out.
With little else at Eyebrook
Reservoir I drove to the north arm at Rutland Water and after parking walked
down the old road to view the shoreline and I found three Common Sandpipers on
the bund and a Little Ringed Plover on the northern shore. I continued to walk
around to view the spit but disappointingly there was a fisherman encamped on
the spit and not surprisingly there were no waders. I scanned the southern shore where I found a
single Greenshank but nothing else. On
the northern shore martins were dropping onto the ground and resting on the
dried mud before exploding into the air periodically and then dropping down
again. They were mainly Sand Martins,
with a few House Martins involved, and the flock must have easily reached 100
birds at times and there was still even more over the north arm. It’s impossible to count this number of
birds, particularly martins, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the total was not
close to 500.
I moved on to Egleton and
after parking set off towards Snipe hide on the Wet Meadow. When I reached the hide there were several
Mallard on the flash as well as a single Shelduck and a Little Egret but little
else. I continued on to Fieldfare hide,
seeing a Sedge Warbler on route, and from the hide there was a female Shelduck
escorting three half-grown ducklings, three Little Egrets and three Greenshanks
and careful scanning of the large raft of Tufted Duck produced a female-type
Goldeneye.
Greenshank
Greenshank
Three Greenshank
Three Greenshank
Greenshank
Two Greenshank
I went to harrier hide to view
the eastern end of the Wet Meadow and lagoon one and found a single Green
Sandpiper on the Wet Meadow but very little else and continued on to tern hide
on lagoon six. There was very little on
lagoon six but whilst in the hide I did see the Great White Egret heading
towards Heron Bay and so set off to heron hide hoping it had come down.
Swift from harrier hide
When I arrived in the hide a
couple present and hadn’t seen the Great White Egret and all there was were
four Little Egrets. One of the juvenile
Manton Bay Ospreys was visible in a tree but other than three Little Grebes and
a Common Tern there was little else. The
couple departed only for one of them coming back a few minutes later to say
that the Great White Egret was visible from Kingfisher hide. I walked the short distance to Kingfisher
hide but couldn’t see it where I had expected but then noticed that it was now
feeding out in the open and so I returned to heron hide, where I got a
reasonable view.
Little Egret
Great White Egret
House Martin
Sand Martin
Sand Martin
I walked back towards the
centre calling at 360 hide on lagoon five but other then four Little Egrets
there was nothing of note and I moved on to Mallard hide on lagoon one. From the hide I saw three Avocets in flight
towards Brown’s Island but they flew on towards lagoon two and three but I
suspected that they were probably the two fledged young and one of the
adults. There were also three Redshanks
on the nearest spit of the long island and a Buzzard flew over before
disappearing to the west.
Whilst having my lunch Ken
arrived shortly followed by Erik and Mike returned from lagoon three and
four. Mike had seen four Green Sandpiper
on lagoon three but very little else and so we went to the centre initially to
see if we could find two reported Red-crested Pochard. Whilst scanning the lagoon for the
Red-crested Pochard I noticed that there appeared to be four Redshanks and when
I looked through the scope found that one was a Spotted Redshank, which was
presumably the bird that has been present for a while and was now almost in
winter plumage. The Spotted Redshank
then flew off but returned shortly afterwards but we still hadn’t sound the
Red-crested Pochard and eventually moved off to the northern lagoons.
Craig was coming back from the
lagoons as we walked down and he had seen a Sanderling and several Dunlin on
lagoon four and so we went into sandpiper hide first. We soon found the Sanderling along with three
Ringed Plovers and four Dunlin near island six.
We continued scanning the lagoon seeing a couple of Little Ringed
Plovers on island two but we couldn’t find the chick and there was also two
more Ringed Plovers on island ten and a couple of Common Sandpipers near or on
island eight. We then noticed that Tim
was cutting the vegetation on the western bank, which did cause some
disturbance, but not unduly and we eventually finished up with ten Dunlin and
we also noticed three resting Curlew.
Erik then thought he had found the Little Ringed Plover chick but it was
on island five and as we scanned further we found two more and realised that
the adults were actually Ringed Plovers.
There was at least eighteen Yellow-legged Gulls resting between islands
seven and eight, along with several Lesser Black-backed and Great Black-backed
Gulls but these had moved near to island seven as Tim moved along the bank
cutting the vegetation. At one point
during our stay there was considerable disturbance and Ken picked up the cause,
which was a female Sparrowhawk and we also had a distant Osprey over Burley
House.
From sandpiper we went to
Shoveler hide on lagoon three but a Green Sandpiper that Erik noticed
disappeared almost immediately but it did reappear a little later. We then heard an Avocet and the adult
followed by two others, that we were able to confirm as juveniles, flew
in. They settled quite close to the hide
and it was nice to see Leicestershire & Rutland’s first confirmed Avocet
breeding success after so many near misses.
Adult Avocet over lagoon three
Juvenile Avocets over lagoon three
Juvenile Avocet on lagoon three
Juvenile Avocet on lagoon three
Juvenile Avocet on lagoon three
Adult Avocet on lagoon three
Steve then called to say that
the usual adult Mediterranean Gull and third-calendar year Caspian Gull were
both on lagoon four and suggested we should go to Dunlin to observe them.
When we got to the hide all of
the gulls were now on and around island one, having moved when Tim cut the
vegetation on islands seven and eight.
The larger gulls were mainly on the island and I picked out the Caspian
as it preened at the right hand end of the flock but the Mediterranean Gull
proved a little trickier. Erik then
found it asleep amongst the Black-headed Gulls that were resting to the right
of the larger gulls and it eventually picked it head up and we able to get
better views. Steve had also mentioned
that he and Terry had seen the two Red-crested Pochard on lagoon one and so we
made our way back to the centre. We soon
found the Red-crested Pochard and they were almost the closest birds and I can
only assume that they were behind one of the islands when we had looked for
them earlier.
Having had a pretty good day
at Rutland Water I decided to call at Eyebrook Reservoir briefly on route home
and was rewarded with five Black-tailed Godwits and a Curlew but the Little
Owls still remained elusive.
No comments:
Post a Comment