David, Malcolm, Roger and I
set off a little later today as there were warnings of ice and we left David’s
at around 08:00 heading for Deeping Lake in Lincolnshire. We had a Sparrowhawk just before South
Luffenham, Buzzards near Tugby and Ketton and Kestrels at Morcott and Tinwell.
As we arrived at Deeping Lakes
a Little Egret flew over the entrance track and it was a bright but cold sunny
morning after quite a severe frost. We
walked the short distance to the hide that overlooks an island where up to five
Long-eared Owls had been seen recently.
There were two other birders in the hide but they hadn’t found any owls
on the island. We spent a good hour
scanning the island without success and one of the other birders then gave
up. I then saw something amongst the
foliage that I thought might be one of the owls but after watching for some
time it didn’t move and when Roger thought he might have one I moved away from
it. Roger’s claim turned out not to be
one and when I looked for what I had been looking at I was sure it had
moved. I alerted the others and it
appeared that both David and Roger had also seen it but had discounted it. As we were looking at and discussing its
possible identity David saw one move that wasn’t too far away from what we were
looking at. This definite bird wasn’t
easy to see but eventually we all saw it but never the whole bird and the other
possible also started to move and we were able to confirm that there were at
least two.
There were two male and a
female Goosander along with several Shoveler on the pit and a Green Woodpecker
was heard on a number of occasions, which Malcolm managed to see. When we got back to the car park we scanned
the lake nearby where there was a single Pintail along with Wigeon, Gadwall,
Teal, Mallard, Tufted Duck and several Herring Gulls.
From Deeping lakes our plan
was to go to Eldernell for the afternoon and we headed for Whittlesey via
Thorney seeing a Kestrel and Red Kite before we arrived at Thorney. After leaving Thorney Malcolm spotted a
Mistle Thrush on some roadside wires and just afterwards I saw a Skylark in
flight, which were both year-ticks and moved the list onto 100. Not much further along the road we stopped in
a gateway to observe a party of swans, most turned out to be Mute but there
were also circa thirty Whooper Swans to the left of the main flock.
On reaching the Eldernell turn
we continued onto Marsh Farmers and after parking climbed the bank to view the
washes. Most of the water was frozen and
initially there appeared to be just seven Whooper Swans. However as we scanned around we soon found a
couple of female Marsh Harriers and two Buzzards and Malcolm picked up three
Cranes flying east. I then found a party
of Dunlin feeding on the far side of the wash and managed to count forty-six
along with at least five Redshanks.
Malcolm then indicated that the Cranes were coming back but as I looked
I realised that there were two flocks, one of three and the other of four. They eventually all came together and we were
able to see that there were four adults and three juveniles. David then picked up some Black-tailed
Godwits, which we all failed to see but two waders I thought might be the
godwits turned out to be a couple of Ruff.
Malcolm then found a Peregrine and there were several Snipe on the wash
and I found a distant male Stonechat and then a Short-eared Owl, which was
quite some distance away. We eventually
felt we had seen everything and went back to the car for lunch.
After lunch we drove back
along the A605 towards Eldernell but stopped in a gateway to view some swans we
had noticed as we went to March Farmers.
Initially we thought they would be mainly Whooper Swans and we looking
for the odd Bewick’s Swan but in fact most were Bewick’s with at least fifty
being counted.
When we arrived at the
Eldernell car park it was rather muddy and so we parked on the verge alongside
the road and walked to the bridge. We
had a Short-eared Owl almost immediately and eventually had as many as
eight. Other than the Short-eared Owls
it was pretty quiet with just a couple of Buzzards and a few Kestrels over the
washes. A Kingfisher was observed on a
couple of occasions in a tree alongside the dyke and there were a few Fieldfare
in the bushes on the other side of the sluice.
Short-eared Owl
Short-eared Owl
We discussed calling it quits
and heading for Eyebrook Reservoir to see if an Iceland Gull yesterday would
appear again tonight but another birder had some rather nice shots of a Cattle
Egret and so we decided to go and have a look.
We walked along the bank for about half a mile and scanned the sheep but
all we saw was a single Little Egret and so we returned to the car and headed
for Eyebrook Reservoir.
On arrival at Eyebrook
Reservoir we checked the oak tree for the Little Owl but it didn’t obliged and
we continued along the Leicestershire side and went into the corral overlooking
the island. There were plenty of gulls
with all five common species represented but eventually most flew off to the north
and presumably Rutland Water and unfortunately there was no sign of the
Iceland. With five Whooper Swans, three
Little Egrets and a Snipe the highlights of the visit and we eventually called
it a day and headed off home.
It had been another good day
with eleven year-ticks taking the total onto 108, with 100 being in the Leicestershire
& Rutland.
No comments:
Post a Comment