Rutland Water :: 21 February 2019

Half term at Charlotte's school so I took another day off to spend some time with her - but birding! There were some reports on Twitter of several smew at Rutland Water and so we set off there early. On arrival we went into the Anglian Water Bird Watching Centre and picked up coffees and paid for our permits. I then left Charlotte for an hour as I had to take a conference call with clients in the Middle East. When the call was over we set out, heading north towards Lagoon 4.

On the way we added egyptian goose [#91] and heard both great spotted and green woodpeckers but couldn't get our bins on them. We stopped off at several hides adding great white egret [#92] to the year list; a single stonechat displayed to our left. We bumped into another birder with a camera and discussed the smew - as a result we dropped into the hide on the southern end of Lagoon 4.

Looking out across the water, everything was very distant but after a few minutes scanning the surface found two and then four redhead smews [#93]. I took a few record shots but they never came close enough to get a decent shot, nor did we see any males.

Onto the Bittern Hide, overlooking Lagoon 3, we met the birding photographer and he said that he'd gone into the Plover Hide and had been lucky to get good views of a pair of smew close to the hide. As there was nothing special where we left and headed to the Plover Hide.

We could see the smew through some distant reeds to our right and eventually they swam out far enough for some better record shots. A juvenile peregrine flew from island to island, eventually landing in the waters edge. It was soon joined by an adult. Looking back round the smew had become two pairs and both started swimming in our direction, eventually giving us a decent swim-past.

Nothing showed at any of the other hides as we made our way back to the Centre.

After a spot of lunch we headed to the southern hides and on our walk, added a pair of bullfinches [#94]. We got to the Harrier Hide and had three stonechat in distant bushes. The guy we shared the hide with had been down the path and said there was nothing of note warranting us going further. It was getting late so we headed back to be sure we were back in Banbury to collect Eilidh from the train.

Sightings (54) included: black-headed gull, blackbird, blue tit, bullfinch, buzzard, canada goose, carrion crow, chaffinch, collared dove, common gull, coot, cormorant, dunnock, egyptian goose, gadwall, goldeneye, goosander, great black-backed gull, great crested grebe, great tit, great white egret, greenfinch, grey heron, greylag goose, house sparrow, jackdaw, lapwing, lesser black-backed gull, little egret, little grebe, long-tailed tit, magpie, mallard, moorhen, mute swan, oystercatcher, peregrine, pheasant, pochard, red kite, reed bunting, robin, rook, shelduck, shoveler, smew, sparrowhawk, starling, stock dove, stonechat, teal, tufted duck, woodpigeon and wren.