Visit to Slimbridge WWT : 23rd June 2011
We were on our way to Montacute in Somerset for a wedding and we had stayed overnight at the Tudor Arms pub in Slimbridge village in order to break our journey up a bit and also to give us a chance to go to the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust centre there which we did in the morning. Unfortunately it was a bit wet and we did not have a huge amount of time so we concentrated on going to the hides. We seemed to forget the South Lake Observatory for some reason but we did go to all the other hides and had a bit of a walk in the open part of the centre where the major attraction was (at a guess) around 100 Rooks making their Rookery in the trees surrounding the site but coming to the ground in a most confiding manner and happy to be within a couple of feet of the humans as long as it meant they could get at some of the duck food. We got some of the best views ever of Rooks at such close distance. Out at the Zeiss Hide we saw around a dozen Barnacle Geese among a lot of Crows in the fields and we could see a Buzzard overhead.
At another hide all there seemed to be were Lapwings – probably around 60 but at one of the hides we had pointed out to us two Ruddy Shelduck. We also heard a Cuckoo call several times but we could not get a view of it. There were, of course, lots of the usual birds of the season – the Hirundines and Warblers including Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler. We also saw a Little Egret.
Bird List
- Barnacle Goose 12
- Blackbird 4
- Buzzard 1
- Carrion Crow 30
- Coot 20
- Great Black-backed Gull 1
- Black-headed Gull 12
- Grey Heron 1
- Greylag Goose 20
- Jackdaw 100
- Lapwing 60
- Little Egret 1
- Mallard 40
- Moorhen 12
- Mute Swan 2
- Rook 100
- Ruddy Shelduck 2
- Sedge Warbler 1
- Shelduck 20
- Swallow 10
- Whitethroat 1
- Woodpigeon 8