The first 'first' was heading west to Leicester, a city that I haven't visited before to spend the day with friends on a rugby day. The morning was meant to be spent watching some under 10's coaching session with the Leicester Tigers development team but that didn't go quite as planned.
On arriving at the pitch I was asked if I could hold my umbrella over a lad who'd had a bad tackle and hurt his neck. A first aider was supporting his neck while waiting for an ambulance but it wasn't much fun for them both lying on a wet muddy field in the rain. To cut a long story short, we actually met the lad later in the day and thankfully he'd been given the all clear by the hospital.
The seats at Welford Road, the home of the Leicester Tigers were pretty good. Although we were in the corner, luckily much of the action was right in front of us. The crunching tackles are the power of the players was far more impressive in the flesh than watching on the TV. I'm certainly glad I wasn't on the receiving end of a couple of the tackles, would have probably cut me in half!!
Despite not having the best of seasons, they clearly saved a good performance for our first live game running out 24-12 winners over Cardiff Blues in the Anglo Welsh Cup.
First up for Sunday morning was a trip to Eyebrook with smew on the hitlist. Although I had been before it was a long time and couldn't remember the site until we got there. Good numbers of duck were present along the western shore but there were often difficult sheltering from the strong wind. Lots of wigeon, teal, 50 goldeneye, female pochard and 5 barnacle geese (of unknown origin) with the greylags. 350 lapwing, 2 dunlin and a couple of bullfinch from the hide.
After a tip off from a local birder we eventually picked up the smew towards the inlet end. There had apparently been more earlier in the week but we were happy with 2 males and a redhead. An unexpected surprise was a small group of tree sparrows feeding in the hedges around some game feeders opposite the res. At least 10 birds were seen but there were probably more.
Nest stop was my first non BirdFair to Rutland Water. It was quite fun trying to work out where the carparks and marquees sit over that weekend.
We didn't have a massive amount of time on the reserve so we decided to concentrate on Lagoons 2 and 4 where most of the birds were. Again, smew were high on the agenda.
In front of the Redshank Hide was a nice variety of wildfowl; nothing special but a group of 6 redhead goosander were an added bonus. From the Grebe Hide overlooking Lagoon 2 we eventually picked up the long-staying American wigeon. It was always rather distant in the choppy water but gave good enough views. The first one I have seen in the UK for years (can't actually remember the last one!)
Sandpiper and Dunlin hide overlooking Lagoon 4 came up trumps with more sawbills. Most of the 10 smew were distant on the back of the lagoon but one of the redheads were nice and close to the hide although the choppy conditions made photography a bit tricky. A pair or goosander were a bit easier to get shots of.
The final first of the weekend was a trip to the Nene Washes on the way home. Although I have been to the reserve before, I hadn't been the Eldernell section on the site. I've heard good things about the area but never got the chance to go.
Straight away you could see that the reserve was heaving with birds. Lots of nice flooding had produced large numbers of golden plover and lapwing wheeling around after being flushed by the numerous marsh harriers about the site.
4 common cranes were feeding in the middle of the site but the highlight was the close views of a short eared owl hunting over the rough ground along the edge of the reserve and frequently landing on the fenceposts.
A great way to end a weekend of 'firsts'
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