A POOR VISIT TO A FROZEN RUTLAND WATER THEN A MAGICAL REMAINDER OF THE DAY AT EYEBROOK RESERVOIR.

A friend had phoned to say he was going to be coming up for a visit on Thursday and so we arranged to meet in the car park at the Egleton Reserve.

 On arriving I could see his mini bus, covered in mud, he had apparently seen a Red Kite on his drive up and asked his Great Nephew to pull onto the verge and they got stuck, I did not laugh, {much} but suggested they must have entered a ploughing competition. However he soon was over to my car, he had brought his Great Nephew with him who was a lovely young man, so after a chat and the exchange of a memory stick and paper work for a talk he his going to give on my behalf we headed out into the frozen reserve.

It soon became evident we had problems with ice on the lagoons and very low numbers of birds to see.

We however carried on around the hides and eventually decided as he really wanted to see a Smew Drake, to head for Eyebrook Reservoir. It seems all the birds that had been on the Lagoons had headed for the open water on the main body of the reservoir away from the ice.


RUTLAND WATER.
24th January.

Teal Ducks and Drakes, Crake Hide, South Arm 3, Main Reservoir.

I was surprised upon entering the hide as to how much the reservoir level had risen and with it brought the birds that much closer, we don't seem to have had sufficient rain but they must have had more in the Rutland area.

Teal Drake, Crake Hide.

For such a small Duck they are so beautifully marked.

Shoveler Drake, Smew Hide, Lagoon 2.

Awful conditions to get images in, we were shooting directly into the sun. At least you can see the bird is standing on the ice.

Reflection in the ice not as good as in the water.
After this we headed back at a pace to the car park to get over to Eyebrook Reservoir.

EYEBROOK RESERVOIR.
24th January.

On arriving at the reservoir I headed for the gateway where I had seen the Smew on previous visits and gratefully they did not let me down, within seconds of getting out of the car I had located six, four Red heads and two Drakes, a good distance away and then I found a singleton closer. So my friend had a really good session, some at a distance and then the closer single bird, he had turned up with a new lens and camera, a Nikon 850 with the Sigma 200mm - 500mm f2.8 with a two times converter, this is the very large green lens, it weigh just under 16 kilos, it is a real beast but the end results are spectacular to say the least.

After a while at the gateway I said to my friend come on we are going to try elsewhere, he asked where and I just said follow me.

After a short time we arrived at another gateway and I parked to the left and he drove in to the right of me, immediately a Short-eared Owl flew around the corner of the high hedge next to the gate and flew about 600mm above his mini bus, the look on his face was priceless. We finished up with three Shorties flying about us, constantly changing sides of the road, we finished up with two cameras on tripods, one on either side of the road and me using the gates as a tripod and following the owls about, it was a magical 60 minutes where I spent more time watching these beautiful birds than taking images.
My friend however took in excess of 800 images, he certainly dipped his bread with his first encounter with a Shortie and to have three to go at was just too much for him, his nephew was on duty with one camera and he spent his time running from one side of the road to the other chasing birds, his nephew and I kept an eye on the other set up.

Smew Drake, Gateway Opposite Stoke Dry.

At Last my friend has seen some Smew, I still could not resist getting another image of this beautiful duck. 

Lapwing, Same Gateway as above.

Very large numbers of these birds all around the Reservoir but I had larger birds to catch for my friend.

Short Eared Owl. Back Road to Horninghold.

These birds were in the area where I had found them previously,  my friend didn't realise this initially and thought we had a lucky break, which we did in finding the three.

After the initial shock of the bird arriving and flying so close we managed to get ourselves together and cameras and tripods were extricated from the vehicles and we set to in getting some images. These birds flew round us and were in sight most of the time we were watching out for them. 

For about 10 minutes, this bird sat on top of the post  watching us, just over 250 metres away.

This bird was on the side of the road that was looking into the sun but as it flew over the field I managed a quick image as the sun came to the left.

Just prior to it dropping to the ground, this and the next image. 

Once on the ground the bird was hidden in the undergrowth so no chance of an image. I'm sure it missed its prey as we could not see anything when it flew away.

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Amazing as to how these birds can swivel the neck, a case of I can still see you.!!!

 

This appears to be a slightly darker bird.

Such beautiful eyes.

Another case of the swiveling neck.

A lucky shot, most of the time the birds flew this low, the lens usually focused on the undergrowth and when they flew close to the hedge you can see in the background I managed some wonderful images of the hedge.




Thank you for the visit, I hope you have enjoyed it  as much as I did in the getting of the images.