With David on his way to Costa
Rica, Roger and I set off for Rutland Water and initially went to the Lyndon
Reserve. We had a Red Kite over the road
just after passing through Cranoe, a Buzzard and a Green Woodpecker just beyond
Blaston and a Kestrel near the Eyebrook Reservoir turn before reaching Lyndon.
As we drove along the entrance
road there were quite a few winter thrushes with both Fieldfare and Redwing in
evidence. After parking we viewed the
feeders where there were Blue and Great Tits coming and going and six Tree
Sparrows with a Great Spotted Woodpecker paying a visit and a Peregrine flying
over.
As we walked to Wader Scrape
Hide we found eight Red-legged Partridges in a field to the south of the path
and a Treecreeper as we approached the turn to the hide.
Once in the hide there
appeared to be very little on the water and as we scanned the edges for any
waders we only saw a few Lapwings but did eventually find a single Dunlin. On the water there were a few Wigeon,
Mallard, Shoveler, Pochard and Tufted Duck and a few Teal were feeding around
the edges. Roger then picked up a Red
Fox running along the far shore, which flushed a probable Stonechat but it dropped
down before we were able to be sure and didn’t reappear. Whilst we were looking for the Stonechat I
picked up a Green Woodpecker in flight
and then found a male Stonechat quite close to the hide.
Male Stonechat
As we left the hide we could
hear a Kestrel calling and few seconds later it flew over but other than a
couple of Bullfinches we had seen little else by the time we got back to the
centre. We checked the activity around
the feeding station and were rewarded with a Marsh Tit.
From Lyndon we drove around to
the North Arm, where the Red-necked Grebe had been reported yesterday, along
with the Long-tailed Duck and two Black-necked Grebes. After parking at the end of the unnamed road
we scanned the fishponds and found five Goosanders, a Little Egret, a Snipe and
a Redshank. Roger then picked up two
Kingfishers in flight but I only saw one, which had perched in the hedge
alongside the fishponds.
We scanned the northern
section of the arm from the spit and found the two Barnacle Geese and the two
Black-necked Grebes and there was a Buzzard over the North Arm and another over
Burley Wood but with little else in evidence we walked into the field to scan
the southern section. We viewed from the
small copse in the field and I counted twenty-seven Pintail and Roger then
found the red-headed Smew and there was a single Redshank on the shore but we
couldn’t find either the Long-tailed Duck or Red-necked Grebe.
I suggested that we should go
to the South Arm to look for the Red-necked Grebe hoping it might have returned
to favoured location this winter. A Red
Kite was observed over Oakham Road and a Jay flushed from the verge as we made
our way to Hambleton. We dropped down
the hill from the church and after parking walked east and beyond the Old Hall
to view the bay. There weren’t too many
birds in the bay and after scanning them several times without success we
thought the grebe wasn’t there. I made a
final scan with the bins and saw what I thought was the grebe quite close to
the shore and when I got the scope on it I was able to confirm that it was the
Red-necked Grebe. We moved back along
the track and scanned the birds just to the west of the Old Hall and found the
male Scaup amongst a party of Tufted Duck and there were three Dunlin and a
single Redshank on the shore.
As I had, had a successful
afternoon at Eldernell on Tuesday we had agreed we would go there this
afternoon. As we drove towards Empingham
my Sat Nav was indicating that the road was closed either just before or at the
A1 junction and suggested a route to pick up a more northern junction. Rather than take the risk the information was
incorrect we turned left at Empingham and headed towards the suggested
junction. There was a Kestrel just after
leaving the village and as we approached Bloody Oaks Quarry I noticed a Barn
Owl sitting in tree hole but Roger missed it and so I reversed back up the road
and the owl was fortunately still sitting there.
We hadn’t seen anything else
of note when we pulled up in the small parking area at Marsh Farmers. We had some lunch before walking to the top
of the bank but there appeared to be very little on the wash and we assumed
that as the farmer was removing bales from the field it had probably caused
some disturbance. There was a Buzzard
perched on a post on the far side of the wash and there were actually plenty of
Lapwings. As we scanned through the
Lapwing we found at least six Ruff and there was also 200+ Golden Plover, a few
Redshank, two Whooper Swans and a Little Egret.
The flock of birds took to flight on several occasions and on one
occasion all of the Redshank appeared to congregate in a small area and I
counted twenty-two, also found a lone Dunlin and twenty Snipe. Roger found four Cranes in flight but they
were very distant, close to the old duck decoy.
He then picked up a Stonechat on the far side of the dyke, which then
flew to the near side being followed by a second and there were also a couple
of Little Grebes in the dyke.
We eventually moved back to
Eldernell and whilst parking Craig arrived but after a brief chat he went to
the top of the bank to look for some Cranes that were being seen but returned a
few minutes later without success. Another
birder on the dyke had seen the Cattle Egret to the east of the car park
earlier and so we went with a forth birder to look for it. We had seen a few more Whooper Swans but when
a party of ten swans flew over I thought that they were Bewick’s and when they
landed on a small flash I was even more convinced as was everyone else. We eventually reached another birder on the
bank who was watching the Cattle Egret, which was pretty distant but a
year-tick for Roger. As we stood taking
the other birder indicated the swans I thought were Bewick’s were actually
Whooper Swans and when we looked sure enough there were four Whooper Swans but
as I went through the rest there were clearly some Bewick’s and eventually we
all agreed that most were Bewick’s of which there were twenty, with just eight
Whooper. There was another party of
circa twenty Whooper Swans in a field to the east and we had two Kestrels over
the wash and another Stonechat. Roger
then cried harrier, ring-tail and three of us had quite nice views as it flew
west. Craig had wandered off but did
manage to get distant views after I called him back and we also saw the four
Cranes. As we walked back to the car
park Craig picked up a Sparrowhawk, which I saw briefly but surprisingly we
still hadn’t seen a Marsh Harrier. When
we reached the car park we saw two Short-eared Owls and a Barn Owl in the fading
light.
It had been another excellent
day’s birding with eighty-three species recorded that included some quality
birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment