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This was our first visit to WWT Slimbridge since the lock down. Even though we have  memberships to the Wetland Centre we had to book tickets online, as numbers of visitors are restricted. We foolishly arrived at a time when most families manage to get their children organised and out of the house and had to queue (with two metre gaps) for half an hour. Looking at the length of the queue when we arrived I had anticipated longer and so the wait was not too painful.

As soon as we were in the Centre we made our way to the hides along the estuary walk, leaving all the crowds behind. There were restrictions on the number of people who could go in to the hides but this was never a problem as there were very few people wishing to visit these hides.

I had seen reports of spotted redshank but we could not see any. There were lots of black-tailed godwits and a few greenshank. I also discovered, when editing my photos, that there were dunlin too.

Goldfinch regularly appeared in front of the hide

Black tailed godwit in flight

Dunlin tucked in among the black tailed godwits (centre right)

A lapwing and a greenshank

Black tailed godwit

Redshank

Lapwing

Something spooked a large flock of greylag geese (but most of them flew between me and the sun).

Black tailed godwit in flight

Grey heron in flight

Barn swallow

Black tailed godwits and reflections

From the new estuary hide we could see nothing except common crane. A few years ago these would have been a major rarity but nowadays they are often here.

Common crane on holiday from the Somerset Levels

It was quite warm in the sun but the sunny periods were infrequent and we both felt quite chilly at times; so we avoided the crowds and restricted our visit to just a couple of hours. Just as well with the number of photos I took in that time.