29th September 2025 – WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire

What an amazing summer! It seems to go on and on. Statistically I have seen it has been the best ever in the UK; better than even the summer of 1976 which, as I was in my late 20s and enjoying a great summer of sport, was for me the best before this one.

What a treat too to be able to go off birding on a Monday morning following a great weekend of sport (now sadly only as a spectator) with success for England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup final, a trip to see Bristol Bears gain a good win over Leicester Tigers in the first match of a new season, Arsenal sneaking a win in the dying moments of their game and the success of the European team in the Ryder Cup golf. This morning was just as good though.

We saw so much and in such wonderful light (so no complaining from me except that I still failed to capture two common cranes flying right in front of me – ineptitude on my part). The best was clearly seeing the very secretive great bittern but it was all quite a joy and we enjoyed our trip to Slimbridge so much that we stayed much longer than usual and had a very late lunch there too.

Great bittern

Great bittern

Apologies to all who were hard at work on a Monday morning: in my defence I did 47 years of those.

Some of my photos:

Ruff

Common redshank

Little egret

Northern lapwing

Eurasian teal

Green sandpiper

Green sandpiper with greylag goose (for size comparison)

Green sandpiper with mallard

Lots of geese and a handful of common crane on the Severn Estuary

Eurasian wigeon

Eurasian wigeon close up

Common snipe

Common snipe

Common snipe

Common snipe and green sandpiper

Black-tailed godwit

Black-tailed godwit

Great bittern

Great bittern

Grey heron

Common darter (for Mike in the USA) still around

Some of the other activities at WWT Slimbridge:

The visitors centre at WWT Slimbridge

Trees of life in the remembrance garden

Never forgotten

Duck decoy

I don’t suppose Sir Pater Scott would have minded.

Comments

2 responses to “29th September 2025 – WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire”

  1. robbiesinspiration Avatar

    These are really good pictures. I’m sure you are very pleased. Much more fun than working 🌞🌈

    Like

    1. martintayler Avatar

      Indeed, I am, Robbie. I loved teaching, but I must admit this morning just had the edge on it!

      Martin Tayler

      Martin’s bird & nature blog: http://martinsbirdblog.com

      Like

Leave a reply to robbiesinspiration Cancel reply