Visit to WWT Slimbridge 22nd April 2013
We broke up our trip from Manchester to Poole with a stop for the night at the Tudor Arms Hotel in Slimbridge on the night of 22nd April. We arrived with a little time to spare so we had a chance to make a short visit to WWT Slimbridge. We arrived fairly late but we managed to get an hour and a half in before closing. Our first interest was to try to get views of the Cranes. We headed off to the Martin Smith Hide which overlooks the “Tack piece”, a small lake surrounded by fields with the River Severn in the background. We were instantly rewarded by views of three Cranes.
Also on fields there were plenty of Greylag Geese and Shelduck and the odd Moorhen and some Mute Swans. Swallows were flying over the fields. We didn’t have that much time and we watched the Cranes for most of that time. It was also an opportunity for me take some photographs with my new Swarovski scope and TLS APO DSLR adaptor. I need to work on this a bit but for only my second attempt to use it I was cautiously optimistic about its possibilities.
We dropped over to the South Lake “discovery hide” briefly and we saw a few busy Arctic Terns and a single Common Sandpiper. Anyway it was getting near to closing time and we decided we should head off to our hotel with the intention of returning the next day for more birding.
Bird Sightings : WWT Slimbridge
| Species | Count |
|---|---|
| Mute Swan | 4 |
| Greylag Goose | 4 |
| Shelduck | 10 |
| Teal | 4 |
| Mallard | 20 |
| Tufted Duck | 10 |
| Moorhen | 2 |
| Coot | 2 |
| Crane | 3 |
| Oystercatcher | 2 |
| Common Sandpiper | 1 |
| Black-headed Gull | 40 |
| Arctic Tern | 8 |
| Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon | 4 |
| Woodpigeon | 10 |
| Jackdaw | 20 |
| Swallow | 10 |
| Blackbird | 4 |
| Pied Wagtail | 2 |
| Goldfinch | 6 |