Club visit to Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Sunday 8 January 2023.
As I am writing this the weather is wet and claggy, so we were lucky on Sunday when six of us arrived at Slimbridge for 11am and it was bright and clear. Starting at the Rushy hide we worked our way down to the Holden Tower before lunch.
The quantity of birds was very impressive, hundreds of Lapwings, Dunlin, Golden Plovers and Starlings which were frequently spooked and took to the air, catching the light in a wonderful way. There was a large group of 300-plus Black-tailed Godwits packed close together, mostly snoozing! I didn’t see any Curlews or any other form of wader, unusually, as water levels were quite high. There were loads of Teal, the commonest ducks there, plus lots of Wigeon, Tufted Ducks, a few Pintails and some brightly coloured Shelducks. The sheer quantity made up for the low number of species.
Working our way down we stopped off at the Martin Smith and Robbie Garnett hides, picking up a probable Snow Goose before climbing to the top floor of the Holden Tower where there is an impressive view around, and out over the Severn Estuary and the Dumbles. Here we saw Canada and Greylag Geese, Barnacle Geese, a scattering of Bewick’s Swans (there are currently up to about 115 on the reserve) and Mute Swans. There were other Snow Geese, Ross’s Geese and probable hybrids of the two, and a Bar Headed Goose. These last three species have been around there for several years in varying numbers and are a bit “suspect” and might be escapes from private collections.
After a relaxing lunch in the restaurant, we headed down to the Zeiss Hide and from the upper floor had good views of six very impressive Cranes which flew in and a couple of Peregrine Falcons, one on a post and another just sat way across on the river bank. They couldn’t have been hungry because they didn’t move. After a heavy downpour had eased off, about 3pm, we headed back to the South Hide. Here we added Gadwall to our list, some Cormorants, 20-plus Avocets; there were lots of Pochards and Shovelers.
From there we went our seperate ways. I finished up in the Peng Observatory watching the 4pm bird-feeding barrow being pushed around with seed being fed to a mass of hungry birds; this was a good place to see good numbers of Bewick’s Swans.
A great day out, as usual, at this time of year.
David Roberts 10 January 2023
The species list can be found here.
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB 