I left home this morning early as I was hoping to see four Greater
White-fronted Geese that had been present yesterday at Rutland Water. It was still quite gloomy as I reached
Slawston and as I slowed down to check the tree where we were told in August
that a Tawny Owl was using but to date we hadn’t seen it despite stopping many
times. To my surprise there was the bird
clearly visible in the gloom, it looked at me and then down into the tree and I
expected it to drop out of sight, but it turned again and glared at me and I
drove off leaving it in peace.
When I arrived at Rutland Water the forty-four Barnacle Geese and nine
Egyptian Geese were there but there was no sign of the Greater White-fronted
Geese. I had a quick look in the North
Arm but saw very little before going to the Volunteer’s Training Centre to join
the other WeBS counters.
It was still quite foggy and there was little point in trying to count
and so we stood chatting before I decided that we could probably count Lagoon
One and I set off there with Clare to begin the count.
After parking we walked down to the centre but as it was still closed we
went to Mallard Hide to begin the count.
There wasn’t a great deal on the lagoon with just most of the commoner
wildfowl being in evidence and the best being two Eurasian Oystercatcher and a
single Eurasian Curlew. We had a quick
check from the centre, but it wasn’t long before we were back in the car
heading for the Old Hall to count South Arm Three.
Like Lagoon One there were very few birds, but a small flock of Tufted
Duck contained a single juvenile/female Scaup and I found a second a little
further out. Despite scanning the area
between the Old Hall and the island several times there was no sign of the
Red-necked Grebe in its favourite area.
We walked along the track and went to point to view the rest of the arm
but other than a few more Tufted Duck and a reasonable number of Common
Goldeneye there wasn’t much else and just two Great Crested Grebe, which was a
surprise. As we walked back we scanned
the area near the Old Hall again and both Clare and I found the Red-necked
Grebe, almost at the same time.
We then went back to the centre and after submitted our figures and talking
to Joe it became apparent that the Wet Meadow hadn’t been counted and so Clare
and I walked around to Snipe Hide to complete it.
As we approached the hide we flushed a party of Eurasian Wigeon and when
we went into the hide found them on the flash and I counted exactly one hundred. There was also a good number Canada Geese to
the left of the hide and with ten Common Shelduck, six Northern Shoveler, a
pair of Northern Pintail and five Common Pochard and four Eurasian Curlew along
with a few Gadwall and Eurasian Teal and it had certainly been worth effort with
the icing on the cake being a superb male Eurasian Sparrowhawk that Clare
found.
It hadn’t been a great count in terms of numbers but there was still a
good variety.
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