With my wife planning a day
shopping with my daughter I decided to make a further visit to Rutland Water
and added House Sparrow to the year-list as I left home, which surprisingly I
hadn’t seen yesterday. A couple of
Buzzards and a Kestrel where all of note I had seen before pulling into the
Egleton car park.
As we had visited the northern
lagoons yesterday I decided I would head off towards Lax Hill. I added both Greenfinch and Bullfinch to the
year-list before leaving the car park. I
went into the centre briefly and after a chat with Stephen and then set of
towards Lax Hill seeing a Great Spotted Woodpecker as I went through the
gate. I hadn’t seen a great deal else
before approaching Snipe Hide on the Wet Meadow but a Reed Bunting was another
addition to the list as I approached the hide.
The flash was pretty much frozen over but six Curlews were feeding to
the right of the hide taking the year list onto ninety.
I went into Fieldfare Hide but
there were far fewer birds than recently and was about to leave when I noticed
a wader walking into view from the right, which was a Green Sandpiper and
another year-tick.
Like from Fieldfare Hide there
were far fewer birds from Gadwall Hide and with nothing new I soon moved on
towards Goldeneye Hide. As I reached a
rather large oak alongside the lower path I noticed that there were quite a few
passerines feeding in it. I stopped to
get a better look and after picking up several Blue Tits I found a Treecreeper
and whilst observing it a Goldcrest came into view behind it. Two year-ticks in a matter of second taking
the total to ninety-three.
Pied Wagtail
As I approached the wood on
Lax Hill a Green Woodpecker flew over and on reaching Goldeneye Hide I found
that like the previous two hides that there were fewer birds than of late with
seven Pintail, a Redshank and a Grey Wagtail being the best.
Pintail feeding in front of Goldeneye Hide
Pintail feeding in front of Goldeneye Hide
Juvenile Grey Wagtail
Juvenile Grey Wagtail
As I made my way through the
wood a Woodcock flushed, which was a nice surprise as both David and Roger had
seen on route home yesterday, which I had missed.
I hadn’t seen too much else by
the time I got back to the car but with Waxwings being reported in Oakham I
headed there but they had disappeared and didn’t return during my stay.
I returned to the unnamed road
at Rutland Water for lunch and was joined by Stephen, who had completed his
volunteer stint and Pete Jessop and after I had finished my lunch we walked
down the road to view the fishponds and the North Arm. There were just a couple of Goosander of note
in the fishponds and so we continued onto the end of the spit to view the North
Arm. Like South Arm Three there were
fewer birds today and all we could find were the three Black-necked Grebes, a
couple of Great White Egrets and a juvenile Grey Wagtail also dropped in front
of us.
Stephen and Pete went to the
dam to view the Surf Scoter but I returned to the Egleton Reserve and walked
towards Lapwing Hide. I met Terry coming
the other way who had seen a Common Scoter from Lapwing Hide and after a brief
chat I called Malcolm who was also on site and when I arrived he had located
the scoter. There were still a few
Red-crested Pochards and Malcolm found a Slavonian Grebe and I then found s
single red-headed Smew.
I brief visit to Crake Hide
produced nothing of note but as I walked towards Shoveler Hide I heard a Water
Rail call, which was my eleventh year-tick of the day. From Shoveler Hide there were three Shelduck,
eleven Pintail, six Red-crested Pochard, ten Pochard, five red-headed Smew,
three Little Egret and two Great White Egrets.
Circa twenty Linnets flew over, which were my twelfth and final year-tick
of the day, taking the total to ninety-seven.
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