Janette Sykes finds that England’s smallest county – Rutland – punches well above its weight, with wonderful birds, gorgeous gardens and mouthwatering treats
CETAWAY
“HAVE A LOOK at this,” the bird expert said, beckoning me with commendable understatement. “Not many people ever see it live, so you’re extremely lucky.”
So I was – borrowing his high-powered binoculars, I could see a splendid adult male osprey sitting on a tree branch, with a huge trout thrashing about in his talons.
“He’s waiting for it to die,” continued the expert, while I watched nature take its course. It was such a mesmerising sight that I found it hard to step back and let someone else view a scene that could have been vintage David Attenborough footage.
But that wasn’t the only thing I learned about ospreys during our visit to Rutland Water Nature Reserve, just a 10-minute stroll from our campsite, The Paddock.
The magnificent species was introduced there from 1996 onwards, with chicks from Scotland, and since 2001, more than 200 young ospreys have fledged. Adults tend to pair for life, and one avian couple has successfully raised 20 chicks together since 2013. I was saddened to discover that this year, they had hatched four chicks, but only three had fledged, as one had been killed in the nest by a dying pike, deposited as food by the overenthusiastic male.
Migrating south
The chicks had hatched in spring, and we visited in August, but there was no sign of them. The bird expert explained that they had probably already migrated more than 3000 miles to West Africa, and the adults would follow in the autumn.
“Why do the chicks leave first?” I asked. The bird expert smiled and said that when the chicks can fly, the parents stop feeding them, to encourage them to find their own food – another case of nature in the raw.
The Nature Reserve is a great place to spend a morning, taking a leisurely stroll and spotting birds ranging from bitterns and buzzards to sandpipers and shelducks.
A bonus was that dogs were welcome on leads, so our lively Dalmatian, Zara, could join in the fun, albeit from a safe distance – she is a bird-lover in the canine, rather than the human, sense!
Created in the mid-1970s, Rutland Water is the ideal location for a huge variety of leisure pursuits, including walking, cyclin
