David and I set off for
Eyebrook Reservoir in rather wet conditions, seeing a Red Kite near Stonton
Wyville on route. When we arrived at the
reservoir the conditions hadn’t improved and there was pretty much persistent
rain, which was heavy at times. As we
approached the reservoir there was no sign of the Little Owls but a Kestrel
flew up from the roadside. From the bridge
there was a single Little Egret and when overlooking the inlet we found a pair
of Pintail and surprisingly a male Stonechat.
With little else we moved off,
taking the cross county route, towards the Lyndon Reserve at Rutland
Water. We saw very little on route but
did hear a Nuthatch in the grounds of the church at Lyndon.
On arrival at the Lyndon
Reserve it was still raining but Paul Stammers was in the centre and we were
able to gain access to view the feeders from the comfort of the centre. There was a constant trickle of birds
visiting the feeders that included Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Dunnock, Tree
Sparrow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Reed Bunting. We eventually moved on to Teal Hide to view
the south arms and found a Great Northern Diver towards Heron Bay.
We called at Normanton hoping
for a Mandarin but there was no sign today and the best we had was a Little
Grebe.
As it was still raining we
went to the Bird Watching Centre on the Egleton Reserve, seeing a couple of
Whooper Swans from Church Lane as we approached Egleton. We found that Lagoon One was pretty quiet
with just three Shelduck and a couple of Pintail of interest.
Other birders had returned
from Lagoon Three indicating that the Long-billed Dowitcher was still present
and showing well and despite it still raining we decided to go and take a
look. After collecting my camera from
the car we set off and on reaching the Shoveler Hide we found the dowitcher was
feeding on the island to the left of hide and was much closer than on previous
visits. However it was doing its best to
hide in the sedges around the edges of the island but I did eventually manage
to get several reasonable shots of the bird.
There were also six Shelduck, six Pintail and at least ten Snipe on the
Lagoon and a Little Egret also flew in.
Long-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
A visit to Dunlin Hide on
Lagoon four produced another seven Shelduck, four Pintail, a drake and three
red-headed Smew, three Oystercatchers, two Ringed Plovers, a Dunlin, four
Curlew and two Redshank.
A quick visit to Bitten Hide
on Lagoon Three didn’t produce very much but we did have a Water Rail calling
quite close to the hide but it failed to appear.
We returned to the Egleton car
park for lunch where we had our first Buzzard of the day and also a couple of
Mistle Thrushes in the meadows. Our plan
after lunch was to visit the North Arm in the hope of finding the wintering
grebes.
We drove to the fisherman’s
car park on the Hambleton Peninsula and soon found the Slavonian Grebe and
three Black-necked Grebes and shortly afterwards located the Red-necked
Grebe. A visit to the spit at the end of
the unnamed road produced the two Barnacle Geese and three Redshank and we also
had up to four Red Kites, at least six Buzzards and a Raven over Burley.
We returned to the Bird
Watching Centre on the Egleton Reserve where there were now more birds and we
had a Dunlin, three Snipe and nine Curlew.
On returning to Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three although we did see the
dowitcher it had returned to the more distant island and was being far more
elusive. A visit to Sandpiper Hide on
Lagoon Four produced a pair of Goosander to the left of the hide and there were
now more gulls present but we were only able to find the five common gulls. At one point the Lapwing erupted into the air
and after a brief search I picked up the female Peregrine, which appeared from
behind the hide and flew off towards the north arm.
We decided that we could call
at Eyebrook Reservoir again on route home and after a brief view of the
feeders, adding Great Spotted Woodpecker our day list we headed off.
There were far more birds
around the inlet at Eyebrook Reservoir when we arrived that included ninety-six
Golden Plover and nine Dunlin and we also added Red-legged Partridge and
Yellowhammer to the day list. I had
recorded eight-five species during the day and David was on eighty-six having
heard several Cetti’s Warbler at Rutland Water, which I failed to hear, which
was a pretty good total for March.
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