A day in Leicestershire & Rutland - March 8, 2016

I left home today in overcast conditions and there was some light rain on and off as I drove to Eyebrook Reservoir.  Other than a Buzzard perched just beyond Blaston I saw nothing else of note during the journey.

The Little Owl was sitting low in the entrance hole to its nest site and was barely visible with just the top part of its head showing.  There was a Great Spotted Woodpecker on the feeders near the bridge and Snipe flew over but there was very little at the inlet.  I stopped briefly at the Stoke Dry car park feeders where there were two Tree Sparrows.

I headed off to the Lyndon Reserve at Rutland Water, seeing another perched Buzzard just beyond Wing.

When I reached Lyndon there were a few Redwing feeding in the to field and the feeders at the centre produced ten Tree Sparrows, two Coal Tits, a Marsh Tit and a couple of Reed Buntings.  I also looked for the Great Northern Diver from Teal hide without success, although it was apparently seen later.

From Lyndon I went to Normanton and found a Great Northern Diver just of the Hambleton Peninsula, which then dived and after picking it up again it dived again after which I couldn’t find again, despite searching for a good fifteen minutes.  I called at both the dam and Whitwell but other than a nice party of Redwing at Whitwell saw very little.

I initially went to Barnsdale to view the north arm where I found the three Black-necked Grebes and although the wind wasn’t particularly strong it was making my eyes water and so I went to the end of the unnamed road of the Hambleton Road to view the north arm off the end of the spit.  The Slavonian Grebe was observed between the Black-necked Grebes and the spit and I eventually located the Red-necked Grebe that was way down towards the draw tower.  There was a Redshank in the southern bay and I saw a Red Kite and a Buzzard over Burley.

I stopped on Church Road to view the swans but they had gone further away and into a dip and at best I saw a few heads, which were all Mute.  After some lunch I went to the Bird Watching Centre to view Lagoon One where there was a single Black-tailed Godwit, which was the first for the year at the site.  There was also a single Shelduck, four Oystercatchers and two Dunlin on the lagoon and a Buzzard was observed hovering close to Brown’s Island.

A walk to Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three produced two Oystercatchers in the large meadow, which were probably two of those seen on Lagoon One.  The Long-billed Dowitcher was showing quite well from Shoveler Hide but there was no sign of the reported Jack Snipe, although there were at least two Snipe close by.  Six Shelduck and a Redshank were also feeding on the lagoon.

A walk to Lapwing Hide produced nothing of note on either South Arm Three or Lagoon Two but I did see a drake Smew and three red-heads on Lagoon Four from Plover Hide and also on Lagoon Four were five Shelduck, seven Pintail and the only Little Egret of the day.  A visit to Bittern Hide on Lagoon Three produced a Gadwall, several Teal, a pair of Mallard and a Water Rail was heard.

Drake Teal

I made my way back to the Egleton car park and left to go to Eyebrook Reservoir hoping that yesterday’s Iceland Gull would return.  I arrived at Eyebrook Reservoir from Stoke Dry and Colin was standing off the road observing the gulls around the inlet.  As I opened the window to speak to him he said there is a Kittiwake out here.  I got out of the car and after an unsuccessful attempt to see it through his scope I got my own scope but as I was sorting the tripod out he said it’s flying.  He gave directions as to where it was and I picked it up in flight and watched comeback down on the water.  Colin was then indicating that it was still coming back down and when it landed we were able to confirm that there were two birds involved.  Peter Dams arrived and was shortly followed by Brian and Roger and whist Colin was helping them locate the birds I suddenly realised I had four in my scope and we eventually were able to confirm that there were actually eight birds.  As we watching seven of them flew off to the south and on inspecting the flock we were unable to locate the eighth and presumably it had followed the others and departed.

We moved to the southern end of the reservoir and entered the coral and there were two Smew, a drake and a red-head just north of the island.  Colin went to the fencing to view the gulls and whilst there were plenty of gulls on the water there was no sign of the Iceland Gull by the time we departed.  Colin texted me later to say that it had arrived at 05:48 but by then everyone else had gone.