David was going to look for
the Glossy Ibis in the Cossington Meadows/Wanlip area, as he needed it for a
year-tick and I decided to go with him.
He was driving and we went to Cropston Reservoir first to look for Mandarin
and we found two male and a female on the far shore but saw little else and
moved onto Swithland Reservoir.
We didn’t look at the southern
section but went straight to Kinchley Lane and after parking on the dam scanned
the water. There were quite a few Tufted
Duck on the water, a few Mallard, two Teal, several Great Crested Grebes and
ten Goldeneye. A Peregrine was perched
in the usual tree in Buddon Wood and after hearing several Jays a Buzzard flew
low through the trees behind the dam. We
drove back round the reservoir and stopped to view the water again from the
stone wall, but didn’t see anything new until we were about to leave when a
Raven flew over.
From Swithland Reservoir we
went to Cossington Meadows and walked down the main path before turning off
towards Rectory Marsh. It was very wet
underfoot and the cattle in one of the fields had trodden up the ground, making
I difficult to find a solid path. As we
approached Rectory Marsh a party of Teal flew but dropped in again at the back
of the marsh. It was a little
concerning as if the ibis is present it usually takes to flight with the
wildfowl but on walking a little further I found it feeding on the far side of
the water. We watched and photographed it
and then decided that it might be better to walk back via the road. As we approached the far end of the pool we
found a drake Pintail and then two more drakes appeared before all three then
flew to the other side of the pool.
Glossy Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Male Pintail
As it was still just after
09:00 we went to Bradgate Park in the hope of seeing a couple of Little Owls
that Roger had seen yesterday. We didn’t
have a lot of time and therefore went into one of the car parks, where it cost
£4.00 t park for the day, or any part of.
Having paid the £4.00 we went through the gate and walked along the path
towards the visitor’s centre and then on to view the grounds of the ruins. There was a Yellowhammer singing from some
bracken as we walked out and we heard a second near the visitor’s centre, which
we thought was an early date.
After reaching the visitor’s
centre we moved off the path and headed towards the ruins and as we weren’t
certain where Roger had seen them we gave him a call. We were a little concerned that they may be
inside the nest cavity but found both were sitting and dozing outside and we could
get some reasonable views.
Little Owl
Little Owl
Having watched and
photographed the owls we started two walk back and found a party of Fallow
Deer, two of which were untypical with one being whitish and the other blackish
and there was also a single fawn. We
then found a Treecreeper but didn’t find too much at the inlet of Cropston
Reservoir before we headed back to the car.
Party of Fallow Deer
Fallow Deer
Fallow Deer fawn
Fallow Deer
Fallow Deer
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