David, Roger and I were out
locally today and it was my turn to drive and after picking up David we headed
to Eyebrook Reservoir. Other than a
single Buzzard near Slawston we didn’t see a great deal else on route. We stopped briefly to look for the Little Owl
but there was no sign, although we did see three Buzzards.
We stopped on the bridge where
we saw a couple of Chiffchaff and heard a third and a Treecreeper. We moved around to view the inlet were there
were three Little Egrets and we found a Little Ringed Plover, four Ringed
Plover and a Dunlin. We heard a Raven
and saw an Osprey to the west but with little else we moved onto Rutland Water.
After parking in the Egleton
car park we set off for the northern lagoons, seeing a couple of Chiffchaff and
Blackcaps just beyond the badger hide and a juvenile Marsh Harrier flying over
Lagoon Four. David had come over
yesterday to see the American Wigeon but Roger hadn’t seen it yet as so we went
into Smew Hide as we felt that this would be the best view point in the bright
sunlight.
When we reached most of the
birds were some distance away and it soon became clear the American Wigeon
wasn’t amongst the closer birds and then Roger located it towards the Sand
Martin bank. We watched it for a few
minutes but as it was so far away we moved to Buzzard Hide hoping we would get
better views later.
Juvenile Little Grebe from Smew Hide
Buzzard Hide as got rather a
nice outlook and appears to be the one area where significant work was carried
out last winter that had not become overgrown again. We were hoping that we might see either the
Bittern of a Water Rail and although there was no sign of the Bittern we heard
a couple of Water Rails but both remained elusive. There were a few Reed Warblers that were
quite active and there was also a Sedge Warbler briefly and a Kingfisher flew
over but we eventually moved on to Shoveler Hide.
Pair of Little Grebes
Female Gadwall
Moulting female Teal
Eclipse male Shoveler
There were two Green
Sandpipers on the larger island and David, who though he had seen a Great White
Egret drop in whilst we were in Buzzard Hide, found it on one of the islands
but Roger and I had stand up to see just its head. As there was still no sign of the Bittern we
moved onto Sandpiper Hide on Lagoon Four.
From the hide we found a
couple of Greenshanks and eventually had three together and Common Sandpiper
was on the shore of closest spit. As we
continued to scan we found a single Ruff and a Hobby flew over on a couple of
occasions. There were several Buzzards
over Burley Wood but we couldn’t find anything else and set off back to the car
park for lunch.
After lunch, we went to the
North Arm and after parking walked out onto the spit and scanned the north
shore. There were three Dunlin feeding
along the shoreline and David found three Pintail in the far bay. We walked further along the spit and found
the Wood Sandpiper feeding on the southern shoreline but there appeared to be
far fewer birds today, which was probably due to fishing boats coming almost to
the bund. It was quite warm standing on
the end of the spit and Roger and I went and took shelter alongside the hedge,
whilst David went and sat on one of the exposed rocks. He then shouted that several Curlew and the
Whimbrel had flown in and initially I could only find Curlew but after several
scans we were all happy that there were seven Curlew and a Whimbrel.
From the North Arm, we went to
Luffenham Airfield but this proved disappointing with no sin of any Whinchat or
Wheatear and very little else, with a single Kestrel being the best.
We returned to the Egleton
Reserve and went to Grebe Hide where we were hoping for better views of the
American Wigeon. The vegetation in front
of the hide was preventing good views of the Lagoon Two and when David found
the American Wigeon I couldn’t see it and so I moved my position but still
couldn’t see it, although both David and Roger could. I eventually got in a position where I could
see the bird but the views weren’t as good as I had on Tuesday. Whilst in the hide and adult Hobby made
several passes and the landed on the ground, which I though was unusual. It remained for quite a while and appeared to
be grappling with something before it flew off.
Hobby
Hobby
Hobby
Hobby
Hobby
Hobby
Returning to Lagoon Three
still hoping for the Bittern, I went to Buzzard Hide, whilst David and Roger
went into Shoveler Hide. There was no
sign of the Bittern or Water Rail from Buzzard Hide and then Roger called to
say that they were watching several Yellow Wagtails. I immediately walked the short distance back
to the Shoveler Hide but the wagtails had flown off just after Roger had called
me. There was a Green Sandpiper on the
edge of the island reedbed and whilst viewing this I found our only Snipe of
the day. With still no sign of the
Bittern we discussed going to Sandpiper Hide again as a Little Gull had been
reported on Lagoon Four but David said let’s give it ten more minutes. A few minutes later he cried Bittern flying
over the water from the right and everyone managed to get on the bird as it
flew all the way across the lagoon to the main reedbed.
With the Bittern in the bag we
set off for Sandpiper Hide and as we approached the hide another birder said
that he had seen a Sanderling and Dunlin but that they had flown. He indicated where they had been and I scanned
the area and saw a small group of waders to the far left. I got the scope on them Dunlin, Dunlin,
Dunlin and then a winter plumaged Sanderling, which is a scarce autumn
migrant. There were eight Dunlin with
the Sanderling and it was surprising we hadn’t seen them earlier if it was the
same Sanderling as reported yesterday.
We had three Yellow-legged Gulls and twenty Common Terns on the lagoon
but we were unable to locate the Little Gull and I picked up a Red Kite over
Burley Wood, which was our first sighting today.
We called at Eyebrook
Reservoir seeing another Red Kite over Stoke Dry on the way and then stopped at
the reservoir to view a party of hirundines that had almost certainly been
brought down by the impending rain. All
three species were observed and we found a Red-legged Partridge on the
Leicestershire side of the reservoir.
Other than seven more
Red-legged Partridges at Cranoe we didn’t see a great deal else on route home but
we did drive through some pretty heavy rain.
It had been another excellent day’s birding with over ninety-five
species recorded between us.
No comments:
Post a Comment