WWT Slimbridge- 15th February 2016

It's half term this week, so I traveled down to the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust's Slimbridge reserve with my nephew and his friend on Monday. We saw lots of great birds (as always), including ten "year ticks", one of which was also a "lifer".

The first stop on the journey was a small pond on the outskirts of Gloucester (Horsebere Pool). Two male Penduline Tits had been present here for a couple of weeks. We arrived on site and were lucky enough to see 1 of the birds within about 10 minutes. The bird was feeding on the Reedmace in the corner of the pond. I managed to get it in the binoculars for about 30 seconds (!), before it disappeared, never to be seen again. A very smart little bird and my second "lifer" of the year. No photos of my own unfortunately, but here's a link to the BirdGuides website, where there are some super shots. Also present here were 2 Chiffchaffs, a male and a female Stonechat, Robin, Long-tailed Tit and Reed Bunting.

Moving on to Slimbridge, we spent about four hours looking around the reserve, adding another 9 "year ticks" to the Year List, along with hundreds of commoner birds, including Teal, Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Pochard, Mallard, Canada and Greylag Goose, Lapwing, Dunlin and Golden Plover.

Pintail

Crane, Pintail, Lapwing and Wigeon

Year List update:

102 - PENDULINE TIT (lifer)

103 - Stonechat

104 - Black-tailed - Godwit

105 - Shelduck

106 - Pintail

107 - Common Crane (4 colour ringed birds)

108 - Scaup (2 females)

109 - Avocet

110- European White-fronted Goose (7)

111- Barnacle Goose (100+)

112 - Bewick Swan

Colour-ringed Coot

I was across at Poolsbrook Country Park in Chesterfield yesterday afternoon, looking for a Caspian Gull (no luck there though!), when I spotted a colour-ringed Coot (FBL), feeding with the Mallards, Canada Geese and Black-headed Gulls.

This is the first ever colour-ringed Coot I've seen, and as soon as I saw it I thought of Kane Brides, of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, who I know has been ringing Coots this way in the North West of England, for several years. I sent him a picture of the bird via Twitter,and heard back that the ring was in fact from his project. This morning, however, I received a Tweet from David of Sorby Breck Ringing Group to let me know that the bird had been ringed by Dan, a member of our own group at Thrybergh CP near Rotherham just last week, on January 22nd. See details of his recent ringing activities on the his website here.

As well as the Coot, I also managed to spot about 100 Black-headed Gulls, a couple of Herring Gulls, dozens of Canada Geese and Mallards, including this funny looking hybrid. Any ideas?

Mallard hybrid

This winter plumaged Great-crested Grebe put on quite a show as well.

Great-crested Grebe

WWT Slimbridge - 28 Year Ticks and a Lifer

The weather forecast for Thursday was the best of the week, so I decided to head out, with my nephew, birding and "year-ticking" at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's reserve of Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. In the end, I managed a very respectable 43 species, which, as the title suggests, included 28 "year ticks" and a "lifer"!

First up the lifer- a Green-winged Teal. This north American species has become an annual visitor to Britain, but, despite a few attempts to see, them I've never managed to catch up with one - until now! After a few hours of searching through the 2000+ Eurasian Teals, the bird, a male, was eventually found fast asleep in front of Martin Smith hide, where I managed to get a photo. Note the vertical white line. This is horizontal in the Eurasian Teal seen behind.

Green-winged and Eurasian Teal

 

Now to the Year List update. At this time of year it's quite easy to add birds to this list, with certain birds such as Collared Dove and Mistle Thrush being relatively easy to find. Others are more difficult to see, so I was very pleased to find, amongst others, wild Bewick Swans and European White-fronted Geese feeding on and around the reserve. Other highlights for me were Common Cranes (3), thousands of Golden Plover and Lapwings and a very obliging Water Rail and Snipe.

 

 

Year List update:

36 – Collared Dove

37 – Curlew

38 – Dunlin

39 – Black-tailed Godwit
40 – Golden Plover
41 – Redshank
42 – Lapwing
43 – Ruff
44 – Avocet
45 – Bewick Swan
46 – European White-fronted Goose
47 – Barnacle Goose (F)
48 – Greylag Goose
49 – Pintail
50 – Pochard
51 – Wigeon
52 – Teal
53 – Shelduck
54 –Shoveler
55 - Gadwall
56 – Green-winged Teal
57 – Mistle Thrush
58 – Fieldfare
59 – Pied Wagtail
60 – Skylark
61 – Linnet
62 – Common Buzzard
63 – Common Crane
64 – Herring Gull

Common Cranes

Last night, whilst surfing the web I came across some very interesting news that saw me driving down to The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's Slimbridge reserve today to see a pair of Common Cranes that are attempting to breed!

The birds in front of Martin Smith Hide

 

The WWT have been working with several other wildlife organisations as part of the Great Crane Project to breed and release Common Cranes back into south west England for several years now. 

The pair, that are nest building right in front of one of the centre's hides, were raised at Slimbridge and released in the Somerset Levels 3 years ago. They returned to Slimbridge during the winter with another 5 birds, which are also still present on site, and started to build a nest. Here are a few photos of the birds.

Male bird displaying

 

Close up!

 

As well as these amazing birds I also added a few other species to the year list, including a couple of summer migrants:

104 – Common Crane

105- Water Rail

106 –Sand Martin

107 – Swallow

108 - Pintail

 

One last picture today of a Little Egret that too was feeding right in front of one of the hides. Gorgeous bird!

 

Little Egret