A Profitable Day in Rutland

This year seems to be starting off very well. It's usually fairly slow to get going, with birding restricted to a couple of trips and a few local visits in the first couple of months and so what passes for a year list is pretty low these days. I seem to spend the rest of the year playing catch up and failing badly. Last year wasn't helped by a poor start, the very cold spring and the scorching summer and I ended up on 186, having missed an awful lot of common birds. I normally reach around 210-225 each year these days, whereas back in the 90's I would typically reach 250-270. The emphasis now is to have a good day out rather than try and get everything that we can.
On Saturday, Colin wanted to go up to Rutland Water with the aim of getting the American Wigeon that is wintering there, as we haven't seen one for a very long time, along with a lot of other birds that can be hard to get. As it happens we still haven't seen American Wigeon, but we did get most of the others.
The Wigeon has been present in the southern part of the reservoir, from the Lyndon reserve and after a fairly late start we got there around 9am. The light was poor, it was a bit windy and it remained that way all day, so not good for photography. A calling Chiffchaff in the car park was a good start and we  headed west to the hides, checking each in turn. In the first we met another local birder also looking for the Wigeon. He pointed out the Goosanders which were rather hard to see being hidden by the walls of the lagoons. I found two Great Northern Divers a long way out in the middle but they showed fairly well at times. There were several large flocks of Mute Swans, red Crested Pochards and Wigeon feeding very actively so it was hard work going through them trying (and failing to locate the American). A bit further on  we found a large scrape and grazing meadow which had a Curlew, a few Dunlin and a flock of Egyptian Geese, including a pit which had taken over one of the Osprey nest sites.
On the way back through the sheep fields,a flock of six Bullfinch was a nice addition and we also found a couple of Treecreepers. A Red Kite was the only bird of prey, though I stopped off from time to time to scan the skies. Being slightly higher we were also able to scan the water but didn't add any more wildfowl.
The next stop was the Egleton reserve, the Birdfair site. A bit of a change to be here without thousands of other visitors.
One Marsh Tit on the feeders was a good start, but no Tree Sparrows (not sure if they are still around as I haven't seen them on recent Birdfair visits). One female Stonechat from the centre was handy. We checked a few hides north of the centre, picking up a nice Peregrine-later also seem on one of the islands the big lagoon to the north. We eventually arrived at the very popular Crake Hide where the confiding Jack Snipe put on a good show a few feet away. It was asleep much of the time but woke up now and again, bouncing and preening. The big problem was getting a clear view through the reeds but I got a few decent shots.

The only other good bird in the area was the Great White Egret-no longer a rare species and now almost expected on any suitable habitat.
Bumped into Tony Hukin on the way back and he gave us pointers on the rarer grebes available on the north arm of the reservoir from the Hambleton road. We spent a bit of time at the Fishermans car park but failed to find the Slavonian and Black Necked Grebes-they were apparently very distant and needed a bit of a hike to reach. However I did find a Shag which is a bit of a bonus this far inland. The two Red Necked Grebes were a bit easier to find with Tony's directions, down from the church where they were sheltering from the now very strong wind in one of the bays.
With the light dropping, we headed home calling in at Eyebrook reservoir, a site we visited several times back in the mid 90's but not since. It hadn't chaned much in the intervening 20+ years. The main target for me was the Smew flock though I only found around five of the 12 present. A huge flock of Lapwing and Golden Plovers were roosting at the north west end along with a few Snipe and Dunlin. The Iceland Gull present recently wasn't seen, though birds were still arriving as we left, though I don't think it has been reported since.