A visit to WWT Slimbridge

Date:  20 August 2017

Location:  WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, GL2 7BT
Weather:  Dull, humid & showery

On our way back from Birdfair we decided to stop in WWT Slimbridge to see if we could tick off some more birds for our #My200BirdYear and a chance to see the cranes. 

When we visit WWT centres we tend to skip the captive bird sections and head straight to the hides (we do enjoy the exotic birds, we just prefer seeing the wild ones). Our first stop was the South Lake Hide. Here we spotted Cormorants, Greylag & Canada Geese, Mallard, Coot, Gadwall, Common Tern and a Buzzard in the trees in the back of the scrape.

Cormorants on the fence & Gadwall in the water

Extreme closeup! Female mallard sitting right outside the hide

Common Tern

Buzzard

Some great birds, but nothing new to tick of the list. So we headed to the next hide: The Hogarth Hide, here things were about to get very exciting! There were lots of birds on the scrape; Black Tailed Godwit, Lapwing, Black headed gull and a single Ringed Plover. Excitingly, there were several birds we hadn't spotted before; Ruff, Little Stint, Green Sandpiper and Snipe!

Black Tailed Godwit

A pair of Snipe

Ruff

This awesome pic features: Ruff, Little Stint & Ringed Plover

Green Sandpiper
(this pic was taken from a different hide where there was also Green Sandpipers)

What an amazing sight and already four new birds on my #My200BirdYear making it up to 131! The Little Stint cause a bit of a stir though with the WWT guys confirming it was one, but some birders disagreed and thought it might be something a bit rarer. Please let me know your thoughts.

From here we continued our stroll around the park, but unfortunately we only saw one more new bird and that was the Barnacle Goose. We sat in both the Kingfisher and Zeiss hide for ages, desperately trying to get a glimpse of the cranes (this is where we spotted them last time) - but nope, no sign of them today. We did however see another buzzard in a tree joined by a wood pigeon, which I thought was a bit risky lol :)

Talking of Wood Pigeons, we did witness some very strange behaviour of a juvenile and parent. The juvenile was very demanding and at one point put its whole beak in the parent's mouth! It then jumped on top of the parent to the point where the parent flew away from it...

Barnacle Geese from the Zeiss Hide

Buzzard and woody sharing a tree!

Juvenile Wood Pigeon feeding from parent

Outside the Zeiss hide was a beautiful red dragonfly which I think is a Common Darter and lots of Long Tailed Tits were flying in and out of the trees. Unfortunately the weather began to change and it started to rain. We made our way down to the Holden Tower (the other side of the reserve) for one more chance to see the cranes.

Common Darter Dragonfly 

Last October we had brilliant views of the cranes from this hide (see below photo). Unfortunately we spent over an hour in the hide waiting for a glimpse but it wasn't to be. The rain was getting heavier and the only ones who braved it were some goldfinches and linnets. 

Cranes from October 2016

Male Linnet

Juvenile Linnet

Our second visit to Slimbridge was brilliant - unfortunately we didn't see the Cranes, but we saw lots of other great birds (including snipes...which are awesome!). The weather was disappointing too and would love to go back when the sun is shining - maybe a trip in October, that's when I saw the cranes last year.

WWT Slimbridge

My first visit to Bird Fair 2017

Date:  19 August 2017

Location:  BirdFair, Rutland Nature Reserve

I only discovered there was a Birdfair a few years ago and since then I have been eager to see what all the fuss was about. Renowned as the Glastonbury for birders we almost didn't go this year, but a last minute change of plans saw us travelling up to Leicester to attend the great event.

Seeing we were only attending the day (and not the whole weekend) we decided to try and do as much as possible; including a cruise with Simon King. Unfortunately the evening cruise was full so we had to attend the 6am one, this ment getting up at 3.30am and travel from our Coventry hotel to get to Rutland in time.

The harbour was pretty easy to find and we were relieved the weather was nice, infact there wasn't a cloud in the sky - great conditions to spot ospreys :)

Here are some pics from the cruise:

The Rutland Belle with the sun rising behind

Simon King spotting ospreys!

Common Tern

A gulp of cormorants!

Amazing Osprey taken pic by Dan

Dan, myself & Simon King aboard the Rutland Belle

The lovely message Simon wrote in my birding notebook. 

"Lovely to have shared Rutland & the ospreys with you" Simon King

What a fantastic start to the day and we managed to spot several Ospreys! After the cruise we headed over to the main Birdfair event. We had no problem parking, grabbed some breakfast in the shape of croissants and orange juice (we had brought with us) and then excitingly headed into Birdfair 2017. All I can say is WOW, we looked at the event map and realised there was so much to see. So with limit time we set ourselves a sort of to-do list:

• Attend Chris Packham's bird crime lecture
• Go to the BTO tent to see them ringing birds
• Meet David Lindo, Bill Oddie & Chris Packham
• Check out the Art Marquee
• ...have fun!

I am pleased to report we did all these things and more, here are some pics from the great day...

Chris Packham leads the talk on 'Tales from the Frontline of Conservation' - an excellent report on wildlife crime in Malta, Cyprus and the UK. The footage and stats were heartbreaking and all bird lover needs to make a stand against this slaughter of our wild birds. 

Chris gave us some Twitter accounts to contact, here they are on the screen.

All the heroes on stage: as well as Chris Packham, there's Ruth Tingay, Ruth Peacey,
staff from Birdlife Malta/Committee Against Bird Slaughter and Mark Avery

Below is an excellent video from Chris Packham's You Tube channel on the bird crime in Cyrpus. Some clips from this video were shown at the event and I encourage you to watch it to see the horrific reality these birds are enduring as we speak. 

After the presentation I felt quite emotional, not only for the torture these birds are going through but the pure heroes these people are in all what they do for the protection of birds. This was my first ever lecture I attended at Birdfair and was so pleased I was able to witness it.

After this we decided to check out the BTO stand where they were ringing birds. There was quite a few people around the stand but we still got a pretty good view. As we waited for the next bird to be revealed a voice came over the tanoid saying the BTO stand was about to reveal something special...

The big reveal...what is the bird going to be?

Unbelievable! It's a sparrowhawk! WOW, what a stunning bird! She was a bit feisty with incredibly sharp claws, but still got ringed, weight, examined and then let free. What a treat!

The next bird was equally as feisty but just a little bit smaller: the adorable blue tit

After spending over half an hour at the BTO stand we decided to have a stroll around all the marquees. With so many different stands it was hard to choose which ones to go to: cameras, optics, charities, wildlife holidays, art, local produce, clothes, books. The art marquee was very inspiring and there were a few artist in that really caught my eye.

Everyone seemed so friendly and we talked to so many people. I even met my Facebook friend Stuart Pike whilst visiting the League Against Cruel Sports stall - it was great to finally met him and his partner Majella in person. The celebrities were lovely too, Bill Oddie signed my birding book and we all had a chat about bridge cameras - a legend! 

Meeting Bill Oddie - what a lovely chat, we talked about bridge cameras and he signed my birder book :)

At the RSPB stall...here is Dan sporting a rather fetching puffin hat and I am a Roseate tern (complete with sand eels!)

Dan tries some virtual reality discovering puffins and terns on Coquet Island with the RSPB

The icing on the cake though was to finally meet my wildlife hero Chris Packham - he was signing his book so i queued up to meet him. What a gentleman, firstly he signed my copy of 'Fingers in the Sparkle Jar' and also my personal birding book. I explained I was doing the #My200BirdYear but was starting to struggle. He was so encouraging and said there was plenty of time with the winter birds due in the coming months and that I could definitely hit the 200 mark! He then took time to have a pic with Dan and myself. A experience I will never forget :) Thank you Chris!

The legend Chris Packham. I have so much admiration for this man, an inspiration to us all.
Dan and I so honoured to meet him

About to sign my copy of  'Fingers in the Sparkle Jar' book

The inspiring autograph and message (on the first page of my birding book) I will cherish all my life x

"Good luck with the 200!!!" Chris Packham

The day was coming to an end and we were starting to flag a little so we decided it was time to say goodbye to Birdfair. Before we went we managed to get one last pic with The Urban Birder - David Lindo. A great guy who knew where Swansea was (where he had actually been birding!). He signed a book for us and happily posed for a pic. 

Dan, David Lindo and myself

So this was the end of our Birdfair experience and even though we were only there for a day we thoroughly enjoyed it and got to do and see so much. We will definitely be back next year, but this time we will plan to go for the whole weekend and make sure we get to see all the lectures we want to see. After Birdfair we decided to go to a different part of the Rutland Nature reserve - Lyndon.

Lyndon Nature Reserve coming very soon...

An evening walk at Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea Bay

Sanderling on Swansea Bay

Date:  24 July 2017

Location:  Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea

The weather has been really weird the last few days, so when the sun decided to shine at 6 o'clock we made our way to one of our favourite nature havens: Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea Bay.

I have written a few blogs on this special place and every time I visit I always discover something new. Now owned by Swansea University, this  SSSI designated area has an array of different habitats: salt marsh, woodland and sand dunes. We were only there for a hour and this is what we discovered...

Dragonfly - needs IDing

Evening Primrose flowers

The sandy dunes to the beach

When we got to the beach we noticed lots of jellyfish were being washed up on the beach (we counted over 20 ranging from small to gigantic ones). I think they are barrel jellyfish, but not 100% sure - be great if someone could confirm that they are.

Apart from the jellyfish there was a lovely group of sanderlings near the shoreline. I love the way the run away when the waves come in, then follow it back out...lovely little birds and a new spotting for #My200BirdYear (I am now on 124).

Sanderling

Sanderlings near the waves

Sanderlings with Mumbles in the background

On the way back to the car we spotted more interesting things such as a flock of linnets, a 11 spotted ladybird and a pellet. Crymlyn Burrows is one of my favourite places in the world, a great place to explore...

A flock of linnets

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A ladybird

Some sort of bird pellet