With news of a Black-throated Diver still being present at Albert Village
Lake, David and I decided to go and see it.
We didn’t see a great deal on route with a Common Buzzard as we
approached Albert Village being the best.
After parking in the car park on Occupational Road we walked across the
road and down to the lake. There was a
small crowd gathered along the western shore and when we joined them we found
Roger, Brian, Roger Brett, Rosie and Andy who were watching the bird in the
centre of the lake. The views through a
scope were quite good but the bird remained in the centre of the lake the whole
time we were on site. There were a few
gulls on the lake mainly Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls but there
were also a few European Herring Gulls and a single Great Black-backed Gull and
the only other birds of note was a Eurasian Oystercatcher and four Northern
Raven.
Black-throated Diver
I suggested to David that we went to Kelham Bridge to try again for a
Willow Tit, which we did. The weather
was much better today but the path had thawed and was very muddy. When we reached the hide, there were plenty
of bird visiting the feeders, despite them in needed of replenishment. Blue and Great Tits were constant and two
Long-tailed Tits were also frequent visitors and three European Robin and two
Dunnock were feeding under the feeders.
Two Great Spotted Woodpecker were observed with one being present most
of the time but there was no sign of the target bird.
Great Spotted Woodpecker
European Robin
Long-tailed Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Great Tit
Blue Tit
We walked to the second hide seeing three Northern Shoveler, six Common
Buzzard and a Common Kestrel as we did so.
From the second hide there were two more distant Common Buzzard and
there were several Gadwall, Mallard and Eurasian Coot on the water.
Common Buzzard
Common Buzzard
We made a further visit to the first hide but as there were far fewer
birds visiting the feeders we were soon on our way back to the car.
Our final port of call was to be Thornton as David hadn’t seen the
Western Cattle Egret. We parked in
Sharp’s Close and walked to field gate but there were just a few Black-headed
Gulls with no sign of the egret and so we went to the footpath at The
Orchards. The path was no quite muddy
and slippery, and I manged to slip as as we went down the slope to the
style. David went down the field, but I
went and looked from the style to the right and found the Western Cattle Egret
in the field with the horses. I retraced
my steps and followed David who had gone too far down the field and so I called
him back and we then had good views of the egret from a gap in the hedge.
Western Cattle Egret
Western Cattle Egret
Western Cattle Egret
Western Cattle Egret
We hadn’t seen a lot of species today but with the Black-throated Diver
and Raven being year-ticks it had been productive. We had also a Eurasian Sparrowhawk near
Bagworth and thirteen Common Buzzards during our time in the field and in some
pleasant winter weather.
My year-list now stands at 135 and my Leicestershire and Rutland list is
at 105, which is not bad considering I was away on a cruise for two weeks
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