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.
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| Cormorants on the fence & Gadwall in the water |
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| Extreme closeup! Female mallard sitting right outside the hide |
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| Common Tern |
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| 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!
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| Black Tailed Godwit |
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| A pair of Snipe |
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| Ruff |
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This awesome pic features: Ruff, Little Stint & Ringed Plover
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Green Sandpiper
(this pic was taken from a different hide where there was also Green Sandpipers) |
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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...
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| Barnacle Geese from the Zeiss Hide |
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| Buzzard and woody sharing a tree! |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Cranes from October 2016 |
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| Male Linnet |
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| 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.
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| WWT Slimbridge |
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