After a crappy couple of weeks at work including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I felt in need of a Christmas treat and decided a visit to the WWT reserve at Slimbridge was in order. I had a look at the train times and prices and almost changed my mind - £78 return for the train ticket plus taxis and entrance fee on top! After I had gotten over the shock I had a look on the Tickety Split website and managed to whittle down the cost of the train fare to £38.50 travelling on exactly the same trains but having to buy 3 separate tickets - Plymouth to Taunton return, Taunton to Bristol return and Bristol to Cam and Dursley return - how utterly ridiculous.
The journey to Slimbridge went seamlessly with no hitches and I arrived at the ticket office at Slimbridge at 10:30am. It was a cloudy and breezy day with occasional sunny spells but it wasn't too cold and I decided to start off at the Rushy Pen where I immediately found a few Bewick's swans loafing around including 2 juveniles.
Bewick's Swans, Rushy Pen
Onwards towards the Holden Tower and from the hides the Tack Piece was well flooded and covered in birds - wigeon, teal, pintail, shoveler, mallard, mute swan, Bewick's swan, curlew, lapwing, golden plover, redshank, tufted duck, dunlin, Canada goose, greylag goose and shelduck all busily feeding away until a peregrine dashed in like a rocket putting everything up. Eventually the birds resettled and I managed to find 7 ruff, 16 white fronted geese and 2 little stints amongst the flocks with a distant view of a common crane feeding in fields behind a hedge - I was very pleased to see the little stints after missing out in the autumn and it was strange to see them in December but there have often been wintering birds at Slimbridge in recent years (I saw 2 birds here in January 2015).
Ruff with Redshank, Lapwing and Shelduck, Tack Piece
Little Stints with Curlew
Pintail
Pintail
Pintail
Greylag Goose with White Fronted Goose
Greylag Geese with White Fronted Goose
Greylag Geese with White Fronted Goose
Greylag Goose with White Fronted Goose
White Fronted Goose
White Fronted Goose
Greylag Geese with White Fronted Goose
Greylag Geese with White Fronted Goose
A look from the South Finger hides and Zeiss Hide added 2 buzzards overhead, 7 snipe roosting amongst the large number of lapwings and golden plovers out in the fields and a feeding flock of barnacle geese out on The Dumbles to the days list along with a pair of brown rats looking very well fed as they scavenged below the bird feeders in the bushes.
Before catching my taxi back to Cam and Dursley railway station I had a final look at the birds on the Rushy Pen before leaving and I enjoyed watching the Bewick's swans feeding and demonstrating with each including a ringed male bird that is 17 years old called By Brook.
Lapwing, Rushy Pen
Bewick's Swan
Shelduck
Bewick's Swan
Bewick's Swan and Coot
Bewick's Swans
Bewick's Swans
Bewick's Swan
Jackdaw
Teal
By Brook the Bewick's Swan
By Brook - WWT Data Screen
Unfortunately the return journey wasn't so smooth with my train from Cam and Dursley to Bristol being delayed. Annoyingly I watched the train I was meant to catch from Bristol to Plymouth whizz through Cam and Dursley station on its way to Bristol with my late train eventually arriving behind it instead of before it. I then had an hours wait at Bristol for the next train to Plymouth, most annoying as I could have spent another hour at Slimbridge but never mind, it had still been a great day out and my final year list total is now an impressive 208.
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