08/05/2018 Lincolnshire with the Cumbrians - Day 4/6 Rutland Water in Leicestershire

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lincolnshire Tour
Day 4/6
Cumbrian Friends Annual Outing

A day I was really looking forward to really lived up to expectations and delivered some superb birding.  As with all the Lincolnshire reserves, this one, in Leicestershire, was new to me which added to the excitement.

We started off at the Egleton Visitor Centre and spent several hours going round lagoons 1-4 before driving to the Lyndon Visitor Centre to view the Ospreys from the Wadersrcape Hide overlooking Manton Bay.

Lagoons 1-4

• No sooner had we signed in when we were alerted to 2 Black Terns flying around lagoon 1.  We actually found 3 of them flying majestically across the water barely 75 metres away.  What a start!
• Things got even better when Graham spotted our first Hobby of the day, high in the sky.  Soon we had close sightings of several of them as they swooped down over the lagoons foraging for insects presumably.  Whatever their reason for visiting, they were a most welcome sight.
• At the junction of the main path and the path down to the Shoveler Hide, we found another Nightingale singing in the dense scrubs but this time we were unable to get a sighting.

Osprey Watching

• We spent what was left of our day watching the family of Ospreys in Manton Bay.  The male was on one platform preparing a large fish that he had just caught while the female was on the nest feeding their 3 chicks on a second platform to the right. 

• Apparently the third chick had hatched just before we arrived!

Another scorching day both literally and in the birding sense of the phrase.