NEW YEAR BIRDING

My first birding trip of the year was to Rutland water with my sister, during a visit to Cambridgeshire, . We arrived early on a cloudy but dry and still day. A reasonable number of species seen  (50); highlights included marsh harrier and a  jack snipe, which was only a few metres  from one of the hides, but so cleverly camouflaged whilst resting,  that  you could only make it out with  binoculars!!  Also good to see a great white egret fly in and land right next to a little egret. Other species of note included smew, goldeneye and goosander. Regretfully  we were not able to add four of the five grebe species on the reserve to our list, as they could only be seen through a telescope :( An interesting addition to our visit was watching an otter swimming around amongst a few swans on an area known as the Northern Arm.

little and great white egrets

]

female smew

reed bunting