Relishing Rutland

Golden Plover below Hambleton Hall

Yesterday the girlfriend went down south on business again, giving me chance to get dropped off at Rutland Water and picked up again at the end of the day. Always worth a visit, I didn't find any of the rarer grebes from last time, but I did bag a new lifer, a Goshawk (#203).

The raptor was distant enough to make a glimpse through binoculars suggest Buzzard on size alone, no doubting a Goshawk though when I located it on the scope. Certainly big, all pale below, long in the tail, with fairly broad-tipped wings of not the hugest span (ruling out Peregrine as a contender). Finally some strong slow wingbeats confirmed it was a bird of substance, not an unusually big looked Sparrowhawk - which are much more prone to a weak flapping action when they soar.
Alas, a quick glance around the hide showed only novice birders with no scopes, so I concentrated on confirming ID for myself rather than spreading the news and the Goshawk, always faraway, soon sailed off into the distance over the Hambleton peninsula. Ultimately the find was a bit like the difference between a Carrion Crow and Raven; for all the smaller crows or hawks you check, you just know almost instantly when you've finally found the bigger, more impressive bird.

Not so sure Goshawk are much of a fixture at Rutland, but the great mix of habitat shouldn't make it too surprising I would suppose, especially at this time of the year when some of the birds spread to more open country.
Anyway, I'm chuffed - an unforeseen lifer!

Elsewhere around the reserve it was very quiet for a Sunday and I had many hides all to myself. That way I could sit silently and patiently and got some terrific views of Kingfisher and Water Rail, and in one a Wren sat on the ledge next to me. One of those seldom occasions you find a tick inside the hide. It sure cursed at me too. I was alone but I still smiled, I still laughed to myself, that's what birds can do to you. They're all a gift, a pleasure so often coming with the unexpected and this feisty wee Wren being no different.

I haven't posted a day list for a long time so here's the score for yesterday:

1. Barn Owl (heard)
2. Blackbird
3. Black-headed Gull
4. Blue Tit
5. Bullfinch
6. Canada Goose
7. Carrion Crow
8. Chaffinch
9. Collared Dove
10. Common Gull
11. Coot
12. Cormorant
13. Dunnock
14. Egyptian Goose (2)
15. Fieldfare (c.50)
16. Gadwall
17. Goldcrest
18. Golden Plover
19. Goldeneye (c.20 my first of the season)
20. Goldfinch
21. Goshawk (briefly circled high over the peninsula)
22. Great Crested Grebe
23. Great Tit
24. Green Sandpiper (5+)
25. Green Woodpecker
26. Greenfinch
27. Grey Heron
28. Greylag Goose
29. Herring Gull
30. House Sparrow
31. Jackdaw
32. Jay
33. Kestrel
34. Kingfisher
35. Lapwing
36. Lesser Black-backed Gull
37. Linnet
38. Little Egret
39. Little Grebe
40. Little Stint (2)
41. Long-tailed Tit
42. Magpie
43. Mallard
44. Meadow Pipit
45. Mistle Thrush
46. Moorhen
47. Mute Swan
48. Pheasant
49. Pied Wagtail
50. Pintail
51. Pochard
52. Redshank
53. Redwing
54. Reed Bunting
55. Robin
56. Rook
57. Ruddy Duck
58. Ruff
59. Shoveler
60. Snipe
61. Sparrowhawk
62. Starling
63. Stock Dove
64. Stonechat (at least 6)
65. Tawny Owl (heard being mobbed by crows at 18:30)
66. Teal
67. Tree Sparrow
68. Treecreeper
69. Tufted Duck
70. Water Rail (good views of 3 from quiet hides nobody else stopped to look from)
71. Wigeon
72. Woodpigeon
73. Wren (one of which flew inside the Harrier Hide)

The sort of list that describes the broad variety of habitats they have at Rutland Water.

The girlfriend was late in picking me up, one whole hour late actually, so I was stranded in the dark for a while. No complaints from me as along the path I found a Tawny Owl getting grief from a pair of crows, and the tell tale shrieking of a Barn Owl.

Some pictures from the day:

Kingfisher

Green Sandpiper

Ruff

Pintail

Stonechat

Fieldfare

(All taken through my 8x42s.)

You know, you could do a lot worse than spend a whole day watching birds.

In other news, my mobile phone has given out on me after a noble effort lasting almost 10 years, and I just whacked in a new ink cartridge in my printer. Why do I mention this? The RSPB are still collecting both for recycling/fundraising - the weblink - be sure to keep it in mind.

3-in-One Day

I must have been a teenager, ten years or more ago. I really can't remember the time last I encountered 3 birds for my life list on one day. What to say but god bless the man who invented bird sightings websites!

First target today was the long-staying juvie Long-tailed Skua in the south of Nottinghamshire. The bird was found two Mondays ago and still this morning there it was, staunchly quartering the stubble field its made a home of for two weeks, harassed only by the occasional Carrion Crow. Stunning bird too, the skua, in a sort of chocolate duffle coat plumage.

Alas, my photographs were distant.
Video 1 - Video 2

Much closer pictures can be found here, (apparently) taken with the landowners consent. That was the problem with this skua, every birder who traipsed the half mile out there knowing it to be a relatively tame individual had to muster all their self-restraint and hold back from blustering across the field for a better look. It was easy to see how sometimes birdwatchers pose a trespass nuisance, though I was surprised to find on a Saturday morning it just was the girlfriend and me with the bird to ourselves, maybe everybody else had already seen it?
Actually no, after pointing the bird out to a couple of new arrivals, it was time to make haste for Rutland and two more of the day's targets.

The scene at Rutland Water.

First stop was the Lyndon Reserve, overlooking the Manton Bay area of the reservoir. Out there among the flurry of Commic Terns and Black-headed Gulls, was what we'd come for, a solitary juvenile Sabine's Gull, hawking and nipping up insects from the surface waters. As you can perhaps see here, the grey-white-black pattern of the wings is so very distinctive that you could call it from half a mile off. And here's a thought, it came all the way from Arctic Canada, or even Siberia!

Third target was Red-necked Grebe, which I thought we'd missed after failing to find it in Manton Bay, where two days of reports had it located. Then having retired to pick up some waders at the Egleton Reserve, at 5pm just before turning home there it was, in the far distance from the last hide along, showing just enough plumage information to distinguish from a GCG. It was the broad dusky neck that did it, the Great Crested Grebe always has a pure white throat at all times of year.
So the moral of the story is never lose hope as long as you're still out there!


Other notables for the day; Little Gull, Artic Tern, Curlew and Green Sandpiper, Little Stint, Ruff, Little Egret, Black-necked Grebe, Whinchat.
64 species for the day, I'm sure several easy ticks overlooked in the hunt for the spectacular.

Some thumbnails:

Spot the Skua!

Rutland waders.

Green Sandpipers.

Little Egret.

Dabchicks.

Comma.


Red Admiral.

Finally, a couple of local spots, an Arctic Tern at Kings Mill Reservoir, one of several that passed through the county that day, and at Pleasley Colliery a Yellow-legged Gull. One of the individuals that roosts at Carsington Water maybe?

Oh, and just nipping out into the garden I heard a flock of Redwing going over. This time of year, pop your ear out at night and you could get them just about anywhere.