Black winged stilt...

I returned for an early-morning session at Rutland Water and my luck was in. A black-winged stilt, an impossibly graceful wader, with impossibly long legs, was feeding on the lagoon. It stayed all morning, so everyone who arrived in the hide was lucky to see it too. There were plenty of other birds as well: three grey plover, a pair of ospreys, a solitary little tern among the common terns, and a flock of about thirty ringed plovers, which included some dunlin and sanderling. I’m really impressed with the lagoons and scrapes that been created at one end of Rutland Water, and the birds that occur on passage; I’ll make sure to visit next time I’m in the area…