There had been a Barred Warbler trapped and ringed yesterday at Rutland
Water but it wasn’t seen after it was released.
However, David, Roger and I thought it wouldn’t do any harm in going to
day as the ringer would be on site again.
We had all decided to make our own way there and when I arrived both
David and Roger where there and were obviously on their way to Fieldfare
Hide. I heard and saw a Common
Chiffchaff and heard two Blackcaps as I walked around to Fieldfare Hide and
when I arrived, Chris the ringer, was at his vehicle but David and Roger
weren’t there. When I asked Chris if he
had trapped many birds he pointed at his chandelier, which is what he hangs is
bags on and it was rammed. He informed
me that most were Blackcaps and that David and Roger had gone down to the
hide. He was in the process of ringing a
Sedge Warbler but when David and Roger joined us he just kept ringing
Blackcaps, which were mainly juveniles.
We stayed with him whilst he processed the whole lot and other than a
couple of Robins and a Common Whitethroat they were all Blackcaps. It was amazing how quickly he was able to
process the birds and had completed the whole lot in about an hour. There had been eighty-seven birds trapped of
which seventy-seven were Blackcaps, which was surprising as we are lucky if we
see five at this time of the year. The
Barred Warbler wasn’t trapped again, although the Common Whitethroat was a
re-trap and was caught at the same time as the Barred yesterday.
Whilst we were watching Chris I picked up a Eurasian Treecreeper in the
scrub and Roger had a Eurasian Sparrowhawk, which David and I missed. With Chris disappearing to open the nets
again we went to Gadwall Hide, where we had a Little Grebe and a Little Egret,
and I picked up a distant Red Kite.
As we walked back towards Harrier Hide there was no sign of Chris and so
we continued onto the hide and had a brief view of a Western Marsh Harrier
before reaching it. The water level on
Lagoon One had dropped since my last visit and we found three Ruff, five Green
Sandpiper and two Common Greenshank on the newly exposed mud and the Western
Marsh Harrier, which was an adult female, provided some nice views. There were three Little Egrets scattered
around the lagoon and David then found a juvenile Whinchat, which wasn’t too
far away. The Whinchat flew towards the
Wet Meadow and perched on the wire fence, but it then disappeared, and we never
saw it again. There was a Common Buzzard
over Burley and David heard a Willow Warbler and when he heard it again to the
right of the hide I went and opened the end flap, where there is a pool and a
few bushes.
As I sat down I noticed a rather nice juvenile Sedge Warbler and then
found two Lesser Whitethroats in the bushes, which performed rather nicely for
quite some time. David then heard the
Willow Warbler again behind the hide and so we went outside to try and locate
it. It called again and also gave a
quiet burst of song, which I managed to hear, and we eventually had brief views
before it flew across the path and disappeared.
When I got back in the hide I went back to looking out the end flap and
found that the Lesser Whitethroats were still preforming, and we also had a
male and a female Blackcap, I then picked up a Eurasian Hobby over Brown’s
Island and a short while afterwards we had a third Lesser Whitethroat. I moved back to looking out of the hide and
shortly afterwards the Northern Lapwings and a Ruff rose high into the
sky. I suspected that it might have been
caused by a raptor and eventually picked up a Peregrine Falcon as it flew in
front of Brown’s Island before heading off towards Lax Hill.
Roger and I left David in the hide and went to Snipe Hide on the Wet
Meadow and had another Lesser Whitethroat just before reaching the hide. Although there is now a good amount of water
in the flash there were no birds, although I did find a Western Osprey sitting
on the perch near the man-made nest.
David had joined us again and we made our way back to the centre finding
two Great Egret at the back of the lagoon but other than a couple of Sand
Martin there was little else, and we went to the car park for lunch.
David was intending to get back just after lunch and after he had
finished his lunch he set off but was calling at Eyebrook Reservoir before
going home. Roger and I left shortly
afterwards for the North Arm, seeing a few Barn Swallows before we left the car
park.
We drove down to the end of the unnamed road and walked out to the
spit. There was a single Little Egret on
the north shore and I found the female Common Scoter quite close. There was a Yellow-legged Gull on the water
and at least six Common Terns over the water but there was no sign of either
the Great Northern Diver or Red-necked Grebe.
We scanned Burley Wood and found a Eurasian Sparrowhawk, a Red Kite,
seven Common Buzzard and two Common Raven before checking out Tim’s
feeders. The feeders were empty, but we
did see a few birds, including a Common Chiffchaff and we also heard a
Blackcap.
As we approached the Egleton car park we had a brief view of a raptor,
which initially we both though was a Common Buzzard, but it didn’t look quite
right. We went into the car park and
drove to the overflow and found the raptor over the village, but it kept
disappearing behind the trees but eventually we saw it well enough to realise
that it was a Eurasian Sparrowhawk.
A brief visit to the viewing area in the centre produced two Northern
Pintail but with nothing else new we set off for the northern lagoons. Graham and Ricky were just coming back as we
went through the gate and after telling us what they had seen we thought it was
worth going on.
They had seen four Red-crested Pochard from Lapwing Hide and a Water Rail
from Crake Hide and so we headed there first.
There was no sign of the Water Rail from Crake Hide but we soon located
three of the Red-crested Pochard, which were all males. Roger then found four more, which were a male
and three female/immature birds. Another
brief look from Crake Hide for the Water Rail produced the same result and we
continued onto Shoveler Hide.
The water level on Lagoon Three had dropped slightly and we found five
Black-tailed Godwits, a Green Sandpiper and five Common Snipe feeding and there
were five Common Terns over the water.
We then went to Sandpiper Hide on Lagoon Four where I thought I had a
Caspian Gull, which was obscured by other gulls most of the time. When the gulls moved around the possible
Caspian Gull had disappeared and so I decided to go to Dunlin Hide to get a
better look. There were fourteen
Yellow-legged Gulls amongst the Black-headed, Common, Great Black-backed and
Lesser Black-backed Gulls but there was no sign of a Caspian. I scanned around the lagoon but initially
there appeared very little until I found a single Garganey. I called Roger but he was almost back at the
centre and didn’t think it was worth coming back for.
I left the hide shortly afterwards and after a coffee in the car park
called at Eyebrook Reservoir on the way home.
It was now a rather pleasant evening and as I drove around to the
northern corral to view the inlet a Common Kestrel flushed from along the
Rutland bank. As I scanned the Rutland
shoreline I found two Little Egrets, a Common Sandpiper, a Green Sandpiper and
two Common Greenshank and there were six Common Snipe feeding near the mouth of
the inlet. There were several hundred
Eurasian Teal and as I scanned through them I found three Northern Pintail and
two Dunlin.
I eventually called it a day after a good day’s birding with seventy-eight species recorded.
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