Rod's Birding: An afternoon at Rutland Water, Rutland

Tuesday 30 May 2017

An afternoon at Rutland Water, Rutland - May 26, 2017

With a report of a summer adult White-winged Black Tern at Rutland Water David and I decided to go and hopefully see it.

When we arrived, we established that it was commuting between South Arm Three and Lagoon Four and so we set off for the northern lagoons. Ken had arrived just before us and quick phone call and we agreed that he would go to Plover Hide on Lagoon Four, whilst David and I headed for South Arm Three. When we arrived in Lapwing Hide Chris and another birder were already in the hide and the other birder had seen the bird just before Chris arrived but we couldn’t find it. My phone then rang and it was Ken saying that it was on Lagoon Four and visible from Plover Hide.

We all left the hide and headed for Plover Hide and thankfully it was still there when we arrived. It was on one of the small exposed areas of mud with a couple of Ringed Plovers and a Lapwing. On closer inspection, the underparts were not fully black and there were several whitish feathers on the belly and presumably it was still in moult. Whilst we were in the hide it flew a few times but always seem to come back to the same area.

White-winged Black Tern

The bird remained for quite some time and only disappeared when a Sparrowhawk flew over, which caused some panic amongst the birds. Whilst in the hide we also had twelve Ringed Plovers, a Grey Plover, a Dunlin, two Redshank and a Yellow-legged Gull.

We left Ken in the hide and started to make our way back but called in Sandpiper Hide first and found the White-winged Black Tern resting amongst a group of twenty-six Common Terns. We called Ken to make him aware but before he reached us the tern flew off towards South Arm Three and so we made him aware and on seeing him later we established he had seen it well from Lapwing Hide.