“Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together.” William Turner :”The Rescuing of Romish Fox” 1545
Birds of a feather flock together – they certainly do at Slimbridge and, at this time of the year, in large numbers.
The other feature at Slimbridge currently is that the Bewick swans have returned:
There were plenty of opportunities for close-ups too:
There were also birds that you are likely to see in your garden too:
A beautiful start to the day encouraged us to venture north from Bristol to spend a while at the World Wetlands Trust reserve at Slimbridge. We were well rewarded with close ups of black-tailed godwits, common greenshank, common redshank, northern lapwings, a little egret, Canada and Greylag geese and a green sandpiper.
Unfortunately, the beautiful light didn’t last long and nor did we.
Peter Scott opened Slimbridge, the first of nine WWT Wetland Centres across the UK, in 1946. Since then generations of families have visited the centre where their interest in nature and conservation has been nurtured.
However, today it seemed more like a vast playground for very young children and their mums, most of whom showed very little interest in the wildlife. It could have been worse as I imagine many of the older children were absent having their shoes fitted for the return to school.
We managed to find a few quiet areas away from the play areas and enjoyed seeing a few interesting birds.
Another break in the rain and so we make a dash for Slimbridge. There’s not much doubt that these are currently wetlands.
There were a few rarities there today (spoonbill, dark-bellied Brent goose) but the only rarity (for Slimbridge) which we managed to see amongst the thousands of birds on view were two Whooper swans who have joined the visiting Bewick swans and the native mute swans.
A few of my favourites from the pens:
Slideshow of my photos from this morning’s visit:
Slimbridge on ice and in the winter sunshine was a sheer delight this morning.
The Bewick swans looked very much at home. We are so lucky to see these beautiful birds so close to home.
The same could be said of the common cranes – we saw two in flight and at least 9 feeding on the edges of the Severn estuary.
2 water rails close up were also pretty special.
Slideshow of this morning’s photos:
Following a series of storms in recent weeks, many parts of the country are now suffering flooding (in some cases quite severe). We are fortunate not to have been affected by these floods but locally it is very wet and muddy and difficult to get out and about.
However, we had no problems getting to WWT Slimbridge today and enjoyed seeing large flocks of waders taking full advantage of the wetlands.
The light was not always good but we were very thankful to be out enjoying some fresh air and, for a change, there was hardly any wind.
Slideshow of today’s photos:
It was dull at Slimbridge this morning but quite mild. It was definitely a pleasure to be spared the wind and rain which have plagued us for the last few weeks.
At this time of year the highlights are the Bewick swans which migrate here from the arctic tundra of Russia.
This year the Bewicks didn’t arrive at Slimbridge until the 16th November which is the latest they have arrived on site since 1965. Experts are linking their delayed arrival to climate change, combined with a mixture of stormy and mild weather in recent weeks.
There were fair numbers of one of my favourite ducks, the northern pintail.
We also had good views of the generally secretive water rail – with two parading very close up.
The wet fields were teeming with lapwing which every now and again were spooked by a predator and took to the skies. Unfortunately, in the the dull conditions they didn’t make the spectacular show that we often see here. We were disappointed also not to see any golden plover which also generally make a great display.
There is always a chance to see common crane here but today they were all very distant.
Slideshow of photos from this morning::
Martin's Bird Blog & Nature Photos 