A morning at Rutland Water, Rutland - December 13, 2015

I went to Rutland Water today to help with the monthly WeBS count and did my normal area of South Arm Three and Lagoon One but also Lagoons Five, Six and Seven and the Wet Meadow as there appeared to be a lack of counters.

Although the weather forecast suggested it would be dry until 11:00 there was light rain during the whole of the visit, the visibility wasn’t too good and it was colder than of late.  I started off in South Arm Three were there were good numbers of Wigeon, Gadwall, Tufted Duck and Goldeneye but also Mute Swan, Egyptian Geese, Wigeon, Teal, Mallard, Moorhen and Coot.  There was also a couple of Little Egrets, two Grey Herons and a Redshank.

From the south arm I went to count Lagoon One on the Egleton Reserve which produced sixty-seven Pintail and over one hundred Gadwall.  There was also Mute Swan, Egyptian Goose, Wigeon, Teal, Mallard, Shoveler, four Pochard, Tufted Duck, a single Goldeneye and small numbers of Moorhen and Coot.  I heard a Golden Plover but couldn’t find it and there was a good number of Lapwing and a couple of Curlew on the lagoon.  One of the Great White Egrets was present but there was no sign of the other two that had been present yesterday and there was also a single Little Egret and a Grey Heron.

After talking to Tim I agreed to count the Wet Meadow and Lagoons Six and Eight but there was very little on the Wet Meadow or Lagoon Six, although a single Shelduck on six was my first of the today.  The plan then changed and I went to count Lagoons Five and Seven.  There are no hides on Lagoon Seven and so I climbed the bank slowly to count the visible birds and managed to do so without flushing a single bird.  There were another two Shelduck along with several Mute Swans, Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard and Tufted Duck.  Lagoon Five was very disappointing with just nineteen Wigeon, four Mallard and three Tufted Duck.

I made my way back to the centre to hand in my figures and found out that four Great Northern Divers had been seen on the Main Water and that Tim Mac and Lloyd had seen three Slavonian and two Black-necked Grebes in the north arm.  The most interesting report though came via Terry Mitcham who had found a Short-eared Owl perched on a fence post near Shoveler Hide and I went with the other counters hoping it might still be there.  We arrived just after Tim Mac and Lloyd and Lloyd had already located it still sitting on one of the posts on the edge of the meadow to the south of the hide.  It was looking rather sorry for itself in the rather dismal weather and presumably it was the same bird that had been seen several times during November.

There were clearly more Fieldfare and Redwing around today, which was probably due to the colder weather further north and I saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker near the cottage.