Scaups and a Scoter.

Alan Shorrock and I decided to leave the county today for a spot of birding over the border into Rutland. We began at Eyebrook reservoir before moving on to Rutland Water. Once the early spell off rain had moved on it turned out to rather a nice and mild winter's day.

Pintails and Kestrel.

Eyebrook was a little on the quiet side though there seemed to be a very high number of Teal around, I checked for Green-winged but didn't find any. Perhaps as many as half a dozen Pintail were seen and they turned out to be the highlight here. Snipe was the only other noteworthy species, a wisp of about ten showed briefly near the island.

Goosanders.

Deciding that we had seen all that we were going to we moved on to the dam at Rutland Water. Good numbers of Goldeneye were noted and I picked out the first of  at least nine Goosanders here. Alan outdid me by finding a female Common Scoter and then some Scaup. As we wanted better views of all of them a trek along the dam was called for and luckily for us the conditions were milder than usual - it gets pretty nippy here usually!. Although we did get closer to the Scaups in particular I only managed a few record shots but it was good to see them, an immature drake and three females being the final tally.

Goldeneyes and Common Scoter.

Having left the dam we moved on to the north arm where we were lucky enough to see two Black-necked Grebes. While always distant the light was good enough to ensure some clear views. Two additional Goosanders and Pintails were noted and also four Redshanks. There was also at least one Great White Egret here, another was noted from Old Hall. Our brief visit to the south arm failed to produce any sightings of the reported Red-necked Grebe and apart from the aforementioned egret the only birds of note were a pair of Ravens. With the light beginning to fail we packed our gear and headed home.

Immature drake and female Scaup.