Day 83 - Birdfair and the Rutland Belle

An early start this morning for the 2ish hour drive to Rutland Water for Birdfair. It wasn't the greatest of days really, the two days before had been busy and stressful due to some serious computer problems and I had a migraine which lasted all weekend so I had to go to Birdfair with a banging headache, and then there was the heat. Oh my was it warm. The marquees were awful and outside wasn't any better. Combined with my headache, I found it hard to muster much enthusiasm for anything yesterday so it was a case of catching a couple of talks I wanted to see, buying a few books I wanted to buy, visiting the stands I particularly wanted to visit - which included the optics marquees to do some binocular related research as I'd like to buy new ones - and then getting out of there early! I didn't really take any photos during the day - it was so hot, I couldn't be bothered to lift the camera - that's how bad it was, haha!

I was rather ready to go home and have a shower really but I'd booked an evening boat cruise on the water with Nick Baker and made plans to eat dinner at Wildwood Kitchen in Oakham after enjoying the food there last year, so on leaving the Birdfair I went into Oakham and then spent a while killing time by wandering around Wilkinson's and a book shop, trying too look like I wasn't just there to enjoy the air conditioning!After a good meal at Wildwood, I headed for Whitwell Harbour.

At 6:30 the group boarded the Rutland Belle, just after showers and thunder had passed over.

The sunshine returned for the cruise.

From the boat, we mostly saw gulls and terns

but also saw a heron and several little egrets.

The highlight for me was, of course, the ospreys. I've not seen them before.  We saw five perched on the nesting poles and surrounding trees.  One of them went hunting...

and we saw it swoop down to the water and make off with a fish!

Brilliant!  I can highly recommend a trip on the Rutland Belle!

It was about 10:30pm when I got home and I'd left the house at 7:45am so it was a long day but a good one! I must make an effort to visit Rutland Water properly at some point, I've been there three times but never once set foot in a hide there or explored the water itself!