An afternoon at Rutland Water, Rutland - August 8, 2017

The weather today had been awful during the morning with some really heavy rain and it was continuing into the afternoon.  However, I decided to go to Rutland Water during the afternoon to see if the poor weather had resulted in any new arrivals.

When I pulled up in the Egleton car park the rain had eased but as I walked to the centre it started to come down heavy again.  There was very little on Lagoon One other than a good number of roosting Cormorants and I suspect the Birdfair activity was having an effect.

I walked along the Summer Trail to get to Sandpiper Hide on Lagoon Four and it was quite miserable viewing from the hide as the northerly wind was blowing the rain into the hide.  As I started scanning I found a party of waders on the near spit that included a Little Ringed Plover, two Ringed Plovers and eleven Dunlin and there was also a couple of Common Sandpiper.  There were two immature Shelduck and three Pochard to the left of the hide and I counted twenty-three Common Tern that were resting on the lagoon.  In the area were the gulls often congregate there was a good number of Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a single Great Black-backed Gull.

It was clear the weather hadn’t dropped any birds in and so I moved to Shoveler Hide on Lagoon Three.  There were six Little Egrets visible and on scanning a few ducks close to the near island I found an immature Shelduck, several Teal and a Shoveler and another bird, which was asleep, I thought was a Garganey.  I continued to watch the possible Garganey and it did raise its head briefly allowing me to confirm its identity.  There was also twenty-six Common Tern around and on the rafts and good numbers of Sand Martin over the water with smaller numbers of House Martin and two Swift.  I was then surprised to see a juvenile Marsh Harrier flying over South Arm Three, which proceeded to fly over the lagoon before dropping into the reedbed.

I went back to Sandpiper Hide where I found a Redshank and three Yellow-legged Gulls and a single Common Gull.

With no sign of anything else of note I went back to the car and drove to the unnamed road to view the North Arm.  I scanned the north shore from the shelter but other than a single immature Shelduck there was little else of note.  With the rain easing I walked out into the field to the right and a Green Sandpiper flushed and there was a second immature Shelduck.  Numerous Sand Martin and smaller numbers of House Martin were over the water and a single Osprey flew over but with little else of note and the weather beginning to close in again I called it a day and headed off home.