I was out with David today and
we were heading for Oakham to see Erik has he had trapped a moth that it still
quite rare in Leicestershire & Rutland and we were keen to see it. When we arrived Erik was waiting for us and
took great delight in showing us the moth, which was a Webb’s Wainscot.
After we had seen in the moth
we headed for Barnsdale hoping we might find both the Red-necked and
Black-necked Grebes. We parked along the
approach road and then walked through the gate to view the North Arm but we
couldn't locate either of the grebes, although we did see and hear a Marsh Tit. We went through another gate to view Dickinson’s
Bay but other than a few Little Egrets, a Greenshank and a Chiffchaff we found
little else and went back to the North Arm for another try for the grebes. This time we had a little bit more success
with David locating the Red-necked Grebe but no Black-necked Grebe still.
We moved onto Sykes Lane car
park and walked along the dam to look for any of the Shags present since last
Tuesday. The wind had increased
significantly and it wasn’t easy looking out from the dam but we eventually found
one of the Shags, which came quite close before swimming away again. As we walked back to the car a Grey Wagtail
flew over calling.
Juvenile Shag
Our next stop was Normanton as
Erik had seen a drake Mandarin there yesterday evening. We were a little more sheltered from the wind
here but there was no sign of the Mandarin or anything else and we moved
towards the Lyndon Centre. As we were
leaving Edith Weston Tim called to say that eleven Knot had just dropped onto
Lagoon Four and so we bypassed Lyndon and went straight to Egleton.
Tim had suggested that we
drive down to Dunlin Hide and when we arrived he was still there as were the
eleven Knot, which is a good record for the counties. The Knot were not easy to see as they were
wandering around amongst the resting gulls but we eventually found all eleven
and had some decent views through the scope.
At one point seven of them took off and looked as though they were off
but they eventually returned and joined the other four.
Eight of the Knot
Knot
The seven Knot alighting again
The female Peregrine was on
the ground in what looked like the same spot as Tuesday and there were ten
Pintail just the right of the hide. As
we scanned the lagoon we found two Little Ringed Plovers, fifteen Ringed
Plovers, ten Dunlin, four Snipe and two Greenshanks and there were fourteen
Yellow-legged Gulls resting amongst the more common gulls. Surprisingly the hide was getting a little
full and so David and I moved onto Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three.
Two of the Great White Egrets
were occasionally seen and there were three Snipe and nine Green Sandpipers
present on the lagoon. As we scanned the
wildfowl, most being Wigeon and Gadwall we located four Pintail. Erik had now joined us and between us we
managed to find four Hobbies hunting over the reedbed and the far end of the
lagoon. A third Great White Egret then
flew near to where the other two were and headed off over Lagoon Two.
Wigeon over Lagoon Three
Adult Yellow-legged Gull over Lagoon Three
Great White Egrets
Great White Egret over Lagoon Three
Great White Egret over Lagoon Three
A possible eclipse American
Wigeon had been reported on Teal Pool at Cossington Meadows, which if confirmed
David and I discussed going to see. It
wasn’t too long afterwards that it was confirmed but as Erik had seen the
Black-necked Grebe from the spit at the end of the unnamed road we decided we
go around to the North Arm before going to Cossington.
David soon found the
Black-necked Grebe, which wasn’t too far out and we also found a Pintail, a
Ringed Plover, a Ruff, a Black-tailed Godwit, a Green Sandpiper and a
Greenshank before we took our lunch.
Erik had indicated that he
would like to join if we went for the American Wigeon, providing we would drop
him off at the railway station in Leicester, which wasn’t a problem.
We parked the car along Syston
Road and entered the reserve via the main gate and then walked about
three-quarters of a mile to reach Tern Pool.
We saw a couple of birders coming away who confirmed that the bird was
still there and we joined a small group who were presumably watching the bird
from the path. Almost the first bird I
scoped was the American Wigeon and after getting David and Erik in the right
area we had some reasonable views, although the light wasn’t brilliant.
Eclipse male American Wigeon
Eclipse male American Wigeon
Eclipse male American Wigeon with a Wigeon
Eclipse male American Wigeon
Just before we walked back to
the car we had a distant Buzzard but saw little else before we reached the
car. We made good progress through
Leicester to the railway station and after dropping Erik off, David and I went
home finishing earlier than usual.
No comments:
Post a Comment