Jack Snipe at Rutland.

I called into Rutland water after work this afternoon for a walk around, upon arrival the report said a Jack snipe was present on lagoon 3.
I headed straight to the lagoon and surprisingly I had the hide all to myself, I found Snipe very quickly as around 15 had taken up residence on the small spit to the left of the hide.
They never came all that close and were always behind the short grass making getting a picture difficult to say the least.

After 15 minutes or so searching I managed to locate the Jack snipe, and it had to be right at the back of the spit in the long grass. After waiting for nearly 2 hours for it to come closer I gave up when he decided to take another nap break. It was good to be able to compare the 2 birds seeing the bill is a lot shorter than the common snipe and tends to bob a lot when feeding. Hopefully he will remain for a few days or weeks and with better light and a bit of luck I might be able to get a better picture.

The other birds of note today was finding a drake Smew with 3 red heads in tow, they were at some distance but they usually remain for a while and move closer over the weeks.

The north arm provided some good views of 2 black necked grebes, 1 Slav Grebe, 1 great northern diver and 1 red necked diver. They tend to spend the early morning in the shallows of the north arm before moving out into the open water making finding them hard to say the least.