With David away on holiday and
Roger only out for the morning I left home on my own for Eyebrook
Reservoir. There was a light south
westerly breeze and it was overcast but there had been no overnight frost and
the visibility was good. After passing
through Kibworth there was a Buzzard perched to the right and after just passing
Stonton Wyville ten partridge flew over the road and landed. My first impression was that they were Grey
Partridge, which are not a common sight in Leicestershire and so I stopped and
scanned the field. There was a crop
sufficiently high enough to hide the birds but one fortunately was standing
erect and I was able to confirm my initial identification and they were Grey
Partridges. There was a Kestrel just
after Cranoe and another Buzzard just after Horninghold.
As I approached Eyebrook
Reservoir I checked the old oak but there were no Little Owls this morning but
there was a sizeable flock of winter thrushes in the field, which were mainly
Fieldfare but also a few Redwing. When I
parked at the bridge it had become quite foggy but I did see a couple of Snipe
landing at the edge of the stream but other than a few common passerines there
was little else and I moved on to the gate overlooking the fields to the
east. With nothing visible in the fields
I moved a little further to view the inlet where I counted 103 Golden Plovers
and thirty-eight Dunlin. There was
another Snipe on the edge of some Juncus and a Redshank feeding on the
Leicestershire bank. There were plenty of birds on
the water off the Stoke Dry car park and so I moved on to take a look.
Roger then called to say he
was on his way but as I hadn’t seen too much at Eyebrook Reservoir we agreed to
meet in the North Arm at Rutland Water.
However a few minutes later I had to call him back as I found the
first-winter Little Gull resting on the water.
I continued to scan the water whilst waiting for Roger and found three
male and three red-headed Smew and had brief views of a Raven to the north. I had been joined by another birder when
Roger arrived and we had been watching the Little Gull just a few minutes
before he arrived but now couldn’t find it.
Roger did eventually find it nearer to the inlet but we then lost it
again and couldn’t relocate it.
I left Roger searching for the
Little Gull and headed for the North Arm at Rutland Water where it was still
quite foggy towards Burley but fairly clear across the water. I had found the two Barnacle Geese, doing
their best to hide amongst a party of Canada Geese, and a Redshank on the north
shore of the fishponds by the time Roger arrived. When we had finished scanning the fishponds
we walked down through the gate to view the north arm and I soon located the
four Black-necked Grebes that Steve had reported yesterday and started to
search for the Red-necked Grebe, which had also reappeared yesterday. Roger then said that there were five grebes
and he thought one might be a Slavonian.
I went back to look at the grebes and agreed that his identification was
correct and that the fifth bird was in fact a Slavonian Grebe. I found a couple of Pintail whilst scanning
for the Red-necked Grebe but we couldn’t find it and decided to go to the
fisherman’s car park and have a look from there. We still couldn’t find the grebe but I did
locate a drake Scaup just off the car park and the adult Great Northern Diver
off Barnsdale.
We eventually gave up on the
grebe and went to the Egleton car park for some lunch before Roger and I went
to view Lagoon One where I counted twenty-five Pintail and fifty-seven Golden
Plover but there was nothing else of interest.
I had decided that I would go
to Eldernell this afternoon and left the reserve shortly after Roger and set
off for the northern lagoons. I had
three Red Kites, a Buzzard and a Kestrel before I reached Eldernell and the car
park quite full when I arrived. To my
surprise Malcolm was in the car park as was Stephen, one of the volunteers at
Rutland Water. Malcolm had been in the
area all day and had seen both Bewick’s Swan and Crane, which were two of the
birds I was hoping to see. However he
had seen the swans off the A605 but Stephen and another birder who had looked
later couldn’t find them and so I decided to stay in the car park.
I picked up a Marsh Harrier
almost straight away but couldn’t locate the two Cranes in the area where they
had been seen. There was a party of
Whooper Swans partially hidden to the north with some occasionally taking to
flight. It was while following two in
the scope that I found the two Cranes but again, like the swans they were
partially hidden by the vegetation and not always visible. Another birder, who had just arrived, picked
up a Short-eared Owl that wasn’t too far away and provided some nice views as
it quartered the area. During visit I
saw four Marsh Harriers, a Sparrowhawk, a Buzzard, three Kestrel and four
Short-eared Owls. There was also c.2000
Golden Plover and thousands of wildfowl, mainly Wigeon but also good numbers of
Shoveler and smaller numbers of Mallard and Pintail.
Male Kesteel at Eldernell
I recorded seventy-four
species during the day, which included one additional to the year list, Crane,
taking the total to 134. I also added
Grey Partridge to my counties year list, which now stands at 106 and added
three to my patch list at Rutland Water that is now at ninety with a score of
103.
No comments:
Post a Comment