Yesterday Justin, Andy and I made our (not quite annual) pilgrimage to the Birdfair at Rutland. Nothing too much to report rom the fair itself other than the usual catch-ups, overpriced food/drink and a couple of book purchases. I attended a couple of talks, one on New Zealand which gave a nice taster to a destination that is on my radar for the future and then an hour long one by the Sound Approach team on wader calls which I have to say left me a a bit cold.
It would have been rude not to squeeze in some birding while we were there and it proved to be pretty damned good. On the drive over we'd seen Red Kite and Common Buzzard and from the optics tent at the fair we had a quick squint at a Water Rail before we grabbed our own optics from the car and had a look at Lagoons 1 and 3 of the Egleton Reserve. 3 Great White Egrets, 5 Little Egrets, Little Grebe and a juv Osprey on Lagoon 1 were followed by Wood Sandpiper, 12 Green Sandpipers, 3 Greenshank, Snipe, Curlew, 7 Ruff, Marsh Harrier, 3 Red-crested Pochard (eclipse males), juv Garganey and several Wigeon amongst the large numbers of common wildfowl which included good numbers of Gadwall and Shoveler.
After we left the fair a stop in at the Lyndon Reserve on the way home gave us a very unseasonal drake Long-tailed Duck, Black Tern, Arctic Tern and loads of Common Terns.
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