It was still raining early
morning after yesterday’s torrential rain and so I left home a little later at
just before 08:00. I headed for the
Lyndon reserve at Rutland Water but saw very little on route.
It had stopped raining when I
pulled up in the car park and I saw eight Fieldfares in the car park area
before I went to view the feeding station.
There were just three Blue Tits and three Great Tits at the feeders when
I arrived but I waited a while and eventually more birds started to come. The first were several Goldfinches that were
then joined by a couple of Tree Sparrows and Chaffinches and finally a Marsh
Tit put in an appearance.
I moved to Teal Hide to view
the south arm hoping that a Great Northern Diver, reported two days ago would
still be there. I looked towards Manton Bay initially but other than a Little
Egret and a few Goldeneye there was little else and I turned my attention to
large stretch of water in front of the hide.
There were plenty of birds and I found a female Common Scoter amongst a
party of Tufted Duck and a second Little Egret landed close to Goldeneye Hide
on Lax Hill. Despite a thorough search
there was no sign of Sunday’s diver and eventually moved on to the North Arm.
After I had parked at the end
of the unnamed road I scanned the fishponds but the water was very
muddy-looking and there were very few birds.
With a little light rain I moved into the shelter to view the north
shore. There was a female Goosander just
on the fishponds side of the bund, four Little Egrets were resting on the bund
and there was a nice adult Yellow-legged Gull on one of the buoys. As the drizzle had almost stopped I went out
to the end of the spit to view the rest of the North Arm. There were plenty of birds on the water to
the south of the spit and I counted twenty-eight Pintail amongst the more
numerous Wigeon and Teal, with small numbers of Gadwall, Mallard and Shoveler
and I also found two male and female Mandarins, which was a patch-tick, resting
on the shore. Further out there were a
few Pochard scattered amongst the more numerous Tufted Duck. On the shoreline I found the long-staying
Whimbrel and a Redshank and as I scanned further up the arm I found three Great
White Egrets with another five Little Egrets.
I continued scanning the water and eventually found the target bird a
Slavonian Grebe. I then moved my
attention back to the north shore and found a party of Dunlin, of which there
were at least thirty-six, although they were difficult to count in the poor
light. With no sign of either the
Pink-footed Goose or Barnacle Geese I moved on to the Old Hall to view the
south arm.
After parking at the bottom of
the hill I walked east and beyond the Old Hall to view the bay. There was a Little Egret near Hambleton Wood
and quite a few Great Crested Grebes were scattered around amongst a small
party of Tufted Duck and Goldeneye but there appeared to be little else. As I was about to move off but scanned a few
birds first that were a little closer and immediately found the Red-necked
Grebe, which was fairly close to the shore.
After walking back to the other side of the Old Hall I scanned the
concentration of birds just off shore, which were mainly Tufted Duck and Coot and
nothing unusual.
It was now approaching
lunchtime and so I drove to the Egleton car park for lunch and afterwards went
into the centre. There hadn’t been a
great deal reported and so I went to the viewing area to view Lagoon One. There was clearly a good number f Pintail on
the lagoon and I counted 110, which is an excellent number but with little else
of note I set off for the northern lagoons.
There were quite a few Redwings
in the hedgerows of the meadows and as I approached the big meadows I found a
Lesser Redpoll feeding in a Silver Birch.
As I scanned the tree I noticed another couple of birds, which were
Goldfinch and then I had what I was pretty sure was a Siskin but couldn’t get a
decent view of it. I managed to get to
the far side of the tree without disturbing the birds and was able to confirm
that there was a female/immature Siskin.
I hadn’t seen the Lesser Redpoll again and began to wonder if I had
misidentified the Siskin but eventually a forth bird appeared and confirmed my
original identification was correct.
I hadn’t seen a great deal
else by the time I reached Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three but other than four
Pintail there was nothing else of note on the lagoon and so I moved on towards
Lapwing Hide.
I called at Crake Hide on
route and found yet another Little Egret and a Shelduck flew over before I
moved onto Lapwing Hide. There were
plenty of birds in South Arm Three with a good number of Great Crested Grebes
but other than another Little Egret and a few Goldeneye they were mainly Tufted
Duck and Coot.
I called at Smew Hide on the
way back where there were just two more Little Egrets and a single Shelduck of
note and so I continued onto Sandpiper Hide on Lagoon Four. The water level on the lagoon was still
continuing to rise and consequently there were few birds. There were three Shelduck and plenty of
Lapwings on the furthest exposed spit but there were few gulls where they
normally gather as a pre-roost, with just a few Black-headed, Common and
Herring Gulls being present.
I went back to the centre to
view Lagoon One again and found a drake and four female Goosanders on the long
island and eventually a pair of reported Stonechats revealed themselves. A Great White Egret was observed in flight
near Brown’s Island and presumable the same Barn Owl that I had seen last
Thursday appeared a started hunting over the area near Harrier Hide and the Wet
Meadow. I probably spent a good quarter
of an hour watching it but with the light beginning to fail I called it a day.
Despite the weather it had
been another good day’s birding at Rutland Water with seventy-three species
recorded.
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