A day in Leicestershire & Rutland - July 12, 2016

I was due at Rutland Water today to help with the monthly WeBS count and as usual I was doing South Arm Three and Lagoon One.  I arrived and parked at the bottom of the hill leading to the Old Hall after seeing very little on route with a Kestrel near Tugby being the best.  I then walked a short distance towards the Old Hall to check the small bay beyond the copse and begin the count.  There were just a few Mallard in the bay but I then noticed a party of birds flying west along the south arm.  I raided the bins expecting that they would be Tufted Duck but was surprised to see that they were Common Scoters but they disappeared behind the small copse.  I ran to the other side of the copse and picked them up again heading over South Arm Three but they then swung north and headed off towards the North Arm.  It was difficult getting an accurate count but I was sure that there were at least twelve.  I called Steve who was in the Burley Fishponds with Terry and made him aware and he went to fisherman's car park on the Hambleton Road to check the North Arm.  I completed the rest of the count seeing nothing else of note, although there was a good number of Tufted Duck, which were difficult to count as they were packed tightly together and constantly on the move.

I went back to the car and checked with Steve to see if they had found the scoters but they hadn’t and so I went to Egleton to compete the count on Lagoon One.  As I was getting the gear out of the car I heard a Little Owl calling, which I hadn’t heard before and so walked along the cycle track a short distance to see if I could locate it.  However by the time I reached the area it had stopped calling and I couldn’t see it, possibly due the well leafed tree I suspected it was in.

I continued onto the centre and found that there were plenty of birds on the water and a quick scan revealed that most were either Gadwall or Tufted Duck.  As I started to scan I found a drake Red-crested Pochard that was still in partial breeding plumage and alongside was an eclipse male.  I called Steve as I thought Terry would be interested but my timing wasn’t great as he informed me that he might have a Roseate Tern on Lagoon Four but as we were talking it took to flight and so we finished the call.  He gave the impression that they were just flying around and so I contacted Tim who had just left the centre to count the main water.  The count was discontinued and he picked me and we went drove down to Lagoon Four.  However when he made contact with Steve the birds had flown off and were no longer on the lagoon and he and Terry hadn’t found it on Lagoon Three.

Tim then left via the Volunteer Training centre exit and I walked back to the centre to count Lagoon One.  Whilst there were plenty of birds on the lagoon but other than the Red-crested Pochard, I found little else of real interest and moved onto Snipe Hide to count the Wet Meadow, which Tim had requested I included.

I eventually saw two Green Sandpipers and four Redshanks on the flash and a Red Kite and a Buzzard flew over before I moved onto Harrier Hide.  There was a third Green Sandpiper and a forth Redshank on the Wet Meadow and I found a Wigeon on Lagoon One.

With the count now complete I called at both Tern and Pintail Hides on Lagoon Six where I found a Little Egret, four Oystercatchers and another Green Sandpiper.  I saw nothing of note as I walked past Lagoon Eight and from the 360 Hide on Lagoon Five there was another Little Egret and a single Little Grebe.

As I walked back towards the centre I had nice, if brief, views of a Sedge Warbler and I called in Mallard Hide to get a different perspective of Lagoon One.  Another birder was already watching the male Red-crested Pochard but it was now a little further away and I was sure a bird close to it was the eclipse male.  As I started to erect my tripod the phone went and it was Steve, who informed me that Andy Mackay had re-found the possible Roseate Tern back and Lagoon Four and was of the opinion that it was a Roseate.

I didn’t stop to look at the Red-crested Pochard and was soon heading for Sandpiper Hide on Lagoon Four.  It must be close to a mile between Mallard and Sandpiper hides but I a managed to keep a good pace, even whilst calling Roger and Ken and texting David that it had been re-found and that Andy was pretty sure it was a Roseate.

As I approached Sandpiper Hide, Brian was coming out, saying it was in front of Plover Hide and so we headed on to Plover Hide.  Steve then called to say it was still there and that it was definitely a Roseate Tern and I arrived just a few minutes later.  Steve indicated that it was still there and whilst giving me direction suddenly said it flying but fortunately it came back down again on a spit to the left of the hide.  It spent most of the time on deck but I did observe once in flight when it was strikingly obvious amongst the Common Terns.

It had a complete black cap and the bill was all black, which was thinner than nearby Common Tern’s.  The upperparts were pale grey and clearly lighter than the nearby Common Tern’s and recalling that of Sandwich Tern.  In fact initial impression was that it recalled a small Sandwich Tern rather than either a Common or Arctic Tern.  The underparts were white with the suggestion of a pinkish suffusion. In flight again it looked very pale with a darker wedge on the outer wing formed by the darker out primary webs and there was no noticeable darker trailing edge to the primaries on the under-wing as in both Common and Arctic Terns and the wings also looked narrower than the Common Terns.  The tail streamers did not appear to be particularly long but did projects beyond the primaries.  It was a County Tick for me and took my county total onto 271.

Roseate Tern

Roseate Tern with Common Tern

I went back to the car park with Steve and Terry for lunch and during lunch Roger called to say he had seen the tern but only just as it had flown off just after he arrived.  I joined Steve and Terry in the centre after lunch and there were now four Red-crested Pochard, three males and a female, on the lagoon.

David then called to say he was on site and asking if the tern was still there.  I informed me that Roger had said it had flown off but he set off for Plover Hide hoping it would return.

With nothing else obvious on Lagoon One I went to Plover Hide and joined David but the tern still hadn’t returned.  During my stay in the hide we had as many as twenty-six terns on the spit but they were all Common Terns and neither the Roseate Tern or an Arctic Tern present after I had left the hide returned.  Whilst in the hide I found four Oystercatchers, two Little Ringed Plovers, three Ringed Plover, two Dunlin, seven Curlews and a Redshank.  Erik then asked us to look at a gull amongst the Yellow-legged and Great Black-backed Gulls and after some discussion we eventually found the right bird and agreed that his initial identification was right and that it was an adult Caspian Gull.

I eventually decided to go to another hide leaving David and Ken in the hide still hoping the Roseate would return.  I went to Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three where there were three Shelduck, two of which were escorting five half-grown young but other than a single Pochard I saw nothing else and moved on to Lapwing Hide.

Female Tufted Duck with a single duckling on Lagoon Three

I had an Osprey as I walked along the path and soon found the flock of Common Scoter but they were some way off and shortly afterwards it absolutely poured down, the rain was torrential.  I could see the leading edge moving over the water and as it approached the Common Scoter they took to flight and were flying around for several minutes before I lost them.  When the rain eventually stopped I made my way back calling briefly at Sandpiper Hide where I counted twelve Little Egrets and found an additional two Ringed Plovers.

I then called it a day and returned to the car park and a coffee before heading off after an excellent day’s birding.  I had found a party of Common Scoter and two Red-crested Pochard but the icing on the cake has to be the Roseate Tern, which is only the forth for the counties.  The first was found dead at Hinckley on May 7^th, 1954, another was at Eyebrook Reservoir briefly on the evening of April 27^th, 1974 and it was then thirty years before the third at Rutland Water on August 15th, 2004.

Thanks go to Steve who had only seen it briefly and at some distance but his alert was sufficient to get Andy Mackay on site who then re-found it on Lagoon Four.  It flew off at 13:30 and unfortunately didn’t return much to the disappointment of quite a few local birders.  Let’s hope it isn’t another thirty years before the next.