I went to the Lyndon Reserve
at Rutland Water first today and after checking out the feeders where the
highlight was a Marsh Tit and three Tree Sparrows I walked to Shallow Water
Hide. I saw very little on route but
found a small party of Redwing just before reaching the path down to the
hide. From the hide I saw one of the
Great White Egrets towards Wader Scrape Hide and there was a Ruff and
Black-tailed Godwit in front of the hide with five Snipe between the hide and
Wader Scrape Hide. There were four Little
Egrets in the bay but I could only find eleven Pintail and as the mist began to
clear I found a Green Sandpiper on the far side. As I walked back to the centre a Green
Woodpecker was observed in flight and on reaching the centre I continued on to
Teal Hide but found very little, although a Curlew flew over as I walked back
to the car park.
It was still quite misty and I
decided to go to Normanton and although the mist had cleared considerable and I
could see the dam there was nothing of note found. I continued around the eastern end of the
reservoir before heading back towards Whitwell but again found very little
except for a nice party of twenty Goldeneye.
I drove down to the bottom of
Barnsdale to view Dickinson’s Bay and the North Arm, finding six Pintail in
Dickinson’s Bay and the two Black-necked Grebes in the north arm. The light was pretty bad looking across the
reservoir towards the fisherman’s car park but I could see Great Crested Grebes
but there was no sign of the Red-necked Grebe.
I then went to the end of the cottage road and walked through the gate
to view the North Arm. There were plenty
of geese on the north shore, mainly Greylag and Canada Geese but there was a
single Pink-footed Goose and twelve Barnacle Geese. Three other birders informed me that they had
seen the Black-necked Grebes and also the Red-necked Grebe from Barnsdale and
so I decided to go have a look from the fisherman’s car park as the light would
be better. I called Ken who was
expecting me in the Egleton car park to let him know what I was doing and he
said he would join me. After parking a
walked back to the road to get a better view of the arm and soon found the
Red-necked Grebe and it wasn’t too far out.
Ken then arrived and after looking at the Red-necked Grebe for a while
also located the Black-necked Grebes.
Whilst viewing the birds he received a text from Phil informing him that
there were two Bewick’s Swans at Eyebrook Reservoir. As I hadn’t seen Bewick’s last year in the
counties it didn’t take too long to decide that is where I would go after
finishing my lunch.
Male Kestrel from the fisherman's car aprk
I drove around to the fence of
the Leicestershire side of Eyebrook Reservoir and was soon watching the two Bewick’s
Swans feeding on the far side, which were my first since three at Rutland Water
in November 2013. The American Golden
Plover was still present and the number of Golden Plover was approaching 200,
which made the American Golden Plover even more difficult to find at times,
although it did fly around several times within the flock and again was
relatively easy to pick out. There were
three male and three female Red-crested Pochard towards the Stoke Dry car park
and there were two Dunlin and a single Black-tailed Godwit at the inlet but
other than two Little Egret there was little else of note.
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