A day at Rutland Water, Rutland - September 22, 2015

As it was a little murky with some drizzle this morning I decided to head off to the Lyndon Reserve at Rutland Water.  When I arrived I checked the feeder station but it was devoid of birds and I suspect a Sparrowhawk had made a visit.  I therefore continued down to Teal Hide to view South Arm Three were there had been a Little Gull yesterday.  There was no sign of the Little Gull and there was very little else with distant views of one of the Great White Egrets and several Little Grebes being the highlight.  As I walked back to the centre birds were now visiting the feeders, mainly Blue and Great Tits but also a few Greenfinch and a single Chaffinch.  I could hear Tree Sparrows calling but couldn’t find them until they burst out of the trees just to my right and flew over to the hawthorns they usually frequent.  When I reached the centre I made one final check of the feeders and a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew in.  It was clearly a juvenile that had moulted most of its crown feathers with just a few specks of red amongst the now mostly black crown.

I set off down the path towards Shallow Water Hide, seeing a couple of Chiffchaffs close to Deep Water Hide and just beyond three Song Thrushes flew out of the hedgerow, which were my first sightings since mid-August.  Just after passing Wader Scrape Hide I found a male Blackcap and on approaching Shallow Water Hide found a Chiffchaff and two Whitethroats feeding a large bramble bush.  After entering the hide I scanned the shore to find four Little Egrets, six Ruff and a Green Sandpiper and I counted twenty-one Pintail on the water.  There was also good numbers of Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Shoveler, Pochard and Tufted Duck as well as numerous Coots in the bay.  Walking back I found three Chiffchaffs and another Blackcap.

From the Lyndon Centre I drove around to Barnsdale to hopefully found the Red-necked and Black-necked Grebes.  As I walked down to view the north arm I had brief views of a Mash Tit and on reaching the viewing point there was quite a large concentration of birds close to the shore and many more further into the arm.  Most were clearly Tufted Ducks and I thought it would be quite difficult finding the grebes amongst the flocks.  However as I scanned just beyond the close raft with binoculars I found a Great Crested Grebe and the second bird I came to was the Red-necked Grebe.  Surprisingly easy today and still pretty much in summer plumage I was able to get some nice views of it through the scope.  As I turned to go and check out Dickinson’s Bay Terry came towards me and he had seen both the Black-necked Grebes in the bay.  We had a chat for a few minutes and I then left him viewing the Red-necked Grebe, whilst I went to find the Black-necked Grebes.  My first couple of scans failed to find them but one suddenly appeared in the scope to be joined by the second a few seconds later.  They were closer than I expected but as I watched them they swam quite purposely out to the North Arm.  There were also six Pintail and two Little Egrets in the bay along with more usual species.  As I reached the car a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew over calling and continued to call, out of sight, from one of the trees.

The seventeen Barnacle Geese were on the north shore of the north arm but there was no sign of the eleven Grey Plovers or Common Sandpiper Steve had seen earlier but I did find one of the Black-necked Grebes again.

There was work going on lagoon one and most of the birds appeared to have gone into the far corner and so I set off for Harrier Hide where I hoped I might be able to find the Stonechats and get a better look as to what was on Lagoon One.  I checked out the Wet Meadow from Snipe Hide but it was very quiet and so I moved on to Harrier Hide.  There were three Black-tailed Godwits feeding between the hide and the islands and I found a couple of Ruff on one of the islands but there was no sign of the Stonechats and so I went to Fieldfare Hide to see if they were perhaps visible from there.  The first shower of the afternoon was rather heavy and I was stuck in the hide for a while seeing nothing of note.

Adult Great Black-backed Gull

Once the rain ceased I headed back to towards the centre and on reaching it I continued on to Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three, seeing a Chiffchaff and a Treecreeper amongst a feeding flock of birds as I did so.  There were five Green Sandpipers on the lagoon and a juvenile Shelduck was feeding towards Bittern Hide.  As I scanned through the small number of Pochard and Tufted Duck I picked up a female Red-crested Pochard and on a rescan found a leucistic male but with little else I moved on to Crake Hide.

Leucistic male Red-crested Pocahrd

Surprisingly there were no Little Egrets or Moorhens near Crake Hide but a male Kingfisher provided some nice views.

Male Kingfisher

Three Black-tailed Godwits on Lagoon Two were presumably the same birds I had seen on Lagoon One earlier and the only other birds of note were a couple of Pintail.  Looking out from Lapwing Hide over South Arm Three I found three Goldneye but there was very little else and I suspect that fisherman had perhaps moved some birds off.

Lagoon Four was my next area to go and I walked to Dunlin Hide, to get a better a view of any gulls that were present.  There were plenty of gulls gathered to the left of the hide, mainly Black-headed but there were also good numbers of both Lesser Black-backed and Great Black-backed Gulls with smaller numbers of Common Gulls and five Yellow-legged Gulls.  The juvenile Peregrine was resting on the ground between island one and five, which appears to be a regular spot recently.  It did eventually fly off to the east and caused some disturbance as it did so.  I found two Ringed Plovers and four Dunlin on the spit extended from island one and there were ten Pintail to the right of the hide.

As I walked back to the centre I bumped into Steve and after few minutes chatting about what we had seen and his recent trip to Cornwall, he carried on to Lagoon Four and I went to Mallard Hide on Lagoon One as he had seen the Stonechats from the centre indicating that they were almost in front of the hide.  I spent a good thirty minutes in the hide but there was no sign of the Stonechats or very little else and I finally called it a day.