A morning at Rutland Water, Rutland - December 18, 2016

It was WeBS Count today and we were meeting in the Volunteer’s Centre at Rutland Water.  Lloyd and Tim Mac had cooked bacon and sausage as a special treat for Christmas, which was a nice surprise before we stated the count.

I was assigned my usual areas of South Arm Three and Lagoon One but suspected that I might be some time in the south arm as there had been a large number of waterfowl recently.  As it was also a little misty I decided I would count from the Old Hall to Lapwing hide and across to Brown’s Island from the north shore and then go to the reserve to complete the count along the south shore.

As I suspected there were plenty of birds and it took me almost ninety minutes to complete the count from the north shore, with Coot and Tufted Duck being the most numerous.  There was also good numbers of Mute Swan; Wigeon, Gadwall and Great Crested Grebe with smaller numbers of Teal, Mallard, Pochard and Goldeneye.  I also found the female Ruddy Duck and there were three Little Egrets on the distant bund, a Redshank on the shoreline and a Raven flew over.

Having completed the count from the north shore I drove to the Egleton Reserve and after parking near Snipe Hide walked to Fieldfare Hide.  There wasn’t so many birds has there had been on Tuesday but there were eight Pintail amongst the more numerous Teal and there were more Coot and Tufted Duck.  There were at least four Reed Buntings feeding amongst the grass in front of the hide and also a couple of Chiffchaffs.

I continued onto Gadwall Hide where there were two Slavonian Grebes and an immature Scaup, with more Mute Swan, Wigeon, Gadwall, Mallard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye, Great Crested Grebe and Coot and also another Redshank.

My final stop was Goldeneye Hide and on opening the flap there was a Green Sandpiper quite close and I then found a Dunlin and two more Redshanks amongst a small party of Lapwing.  There were yet more Mute Swan, Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Pintail, Shoveler, Goldeneye, Great Crested Grebe and Coot but I had eventually finished the South Arm Three count.  I had counted 3766 birds in total with Coot being the most numerous with 2288 counted.

I had spoken to Tim who agreed that he and Chris would take on Lagoon One but I went into Harrier Hide to see if there were birds they wouldn’t see from the centre.  There was just two Shoveler that probably wouldn’t be visible but I also had a Little Egret and Great White Egret.

I went into the centre to see Tim and hand-in the figures seeing a pair of Stonechat and then went to the North Arm as the Green-winged Teal seen yesterday was still present.  After parking I walked down the road and through the gate to view the North Arm and after joining another birder found the Green-winged Teal amongst a party of Teal on the far shore.  There was another Great White Egret on the bund and I found two of the Black-necked Grebes further in the arm and whilst looking for the Long-tailed Duck, which another bird eventually found, I found a pair of Red-crested Pochards and counted sixty-one Pintail with a Grey Wagtail flying over.