A Brilliant Day Trip to Slimbridge

Whooper Swan, Slimbridge

It was an early start on Saturday 1st February as I headed off to Slimbridge for the day, a trip postponed from December last year. As I made myself a cup of tea in the kitchen at the back of the house I was delighted to finally hear my first garden Robin of this winter  quietly singing away in the darkness outside despite it being the ungodly hour of 5:30am. Even better was a Robin singing away on the next door neighbours roof as I left the house to walk to the train station, it was brighter at the front of the house with the streetlamps and pub lights blazing away and the Robin was absolutely belting it out in the darkness, a joy to see and hear at last.

Robin (seen at Slimbridge)

I caught the train from Plymouth to Cam & Dursley as usual and with the return fare costing £95.50 I used Split Ticketing again and got the price down to £47.45! I caught exactly the same trains at exactly the same times but it was cheaper because I purchased 4 separate return tickets instead of the one, ie, Plymouth to Tiverton, Tiverton to Taunton, Taunton to Yate and Yate to Cam & Dursley returns - a totally ridiculous situation!

The journey went smoothly and to time and instead of booking (expensive) taxis to and from the station to WWT Slimbridge I registered for The Robin service with Gloucester County Council and arranged for a community minibus to transport me instead. It only cost me the grand sum of £6.00 return so saving me a good £35.00, a fantastic bargain!

The Robin ran to time too and I arrived at Slimbridge at around 9:45am to find it packed with people. It's quite busy on a Saturday in December when I usually visit but this was much more so and with it being a cold and grey but dry and calm day there were lots of families present with lots of kids running around everywhere, all hopefully the birders of the future. However they mostly kept to the collection areas so there wasn't too much disturbance in the birding areas but there were a lot of birders present too and the space in the hides was a bit tight at times.

Ring-necked Duck from the collection

Despite all this I ended up having a brilliant visit and managed to see all of my target birds bar one (Green-winged Teal) with the highlights being as follows:- 

Estuary Tower - a Little Stint and a Ringed Plover showed very well feeding on one of the small islands out on The Dumbles scrape before flying off. A Ross's Goose was feeding amongst the Feral flock of Barnacle Geese but I didn't pay much attention to it although I did find a distant Barnacle Goose sporting a white neck ring with black characters that unfortunately I couldn't read. A distant Peregrine was perched up on a fence and a Kestrel hovered overhead. 

South Lake Discovery Hide - a Spoonbill was asleep here before being seen later very much awake on The Tack Piece. The Green-winged Teal was reported from here but I failed to find it although 11 Avocet and a Great Crested Grebe showed very nicely.

Spoonbill - feeding on The Tack Piece

Kingfisher Hide - a Treecreeper, a Coal Tit and a pair of Siskins were seen around the bird feeders along with Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits. There were 2 Little Grebe on the pool in front of the Kingfisher nesting bank with a few Gadwalls, Mallards and Shovelers. Around 30 European White-fronted Geese flew into the fields having been seen earlier as part of a larger flock on The Tack Piece.

Siskin

Willow Hide - a Water Rail showed very well beneath the bird feeders and a Grey Squirrel was trying to chew into the containers to steal the food.

Water Rail

The Tack Piece - it was quite the spectacle here with birds everywhere but the highlight for me were 2 Whooper Swans in amongst the Bewick's Swans, my first at Slimbridge. One had recently been captured and ringed with the unfortunate letters ASS and had then been joined by another unringed bird.

Whooper Swan ASS

Sleepy ASS

Whooper Swans

There were quite a few ringed Bewick's Swans present too but sadly there are no cygnets present this year and the number of wintering adults is down too.

Bewick's Swans with assorted leg bling

Whoopers and a Bewick's Swan

A Whooper and Bewick's Swans

Whooper (l) and Bewick's (r)

Whoopers and a Bewick's Swan 

A Whooper and Bewick's Swans 

A Buzzard was sat up in a bare tree at the back of The Tack Piece much to the consternation of the Golden Plover, Lapwing and Dunlin flock present which regularly took to the air in spectacular fashion. The Redshank, 4 Curlew, 5 Snipe and 20+ Ruff present weren't so fussed and stayed put as did the 6 Common Cranes, 2 of which were ringed.

Ruff, Redshank, Shelduck and Lapwing

A Red Kite flying over also caused mayhem but a more distant Marsh Harrier hunting over the fields to the north went unnoticed. A Little Egret flew over too but looked tiny in comparison to the 3 Great White Egrets which flew over together, one bird flew low and slowly in an almost territorial style flight as the 2 higher birds powered through above it.

Pochard, Shoveler and Pintail were all year ticks here too and 3 Roe Deer were seen feeding along the hedgerow amongst the European White-fronted Goose flock.

Pintail

Tufted Duck

Wigeon

All too soon it was time to catch The Robin minibus back to Cam & Dursley station to start the journey home to Plymouth but before being picked up I had a look for a reported Glossy Ibis in the fields outside of the main entrance and I very luckily caught a sight of it before it flew off into the reserve.

Glossy Ibis - a record shot before it flew off!

The journey home ran just as smoothly as the mornings did and I arrived home tired but very happy after a great day's birding. Slimbridge is probably the furthest I travel on public transport for a days birding, it's a shame it isn't closer to Plymouth as I would love to visit it more often despite it always having a whiff of plastic-ness about it.