VARIOUS HIDES AND THE SUMMER WALK
WEATHER: wall to wall sunshine with a light breeze.
The White-spotted Bluethroat has returned to Slimbridge for its fourth, fruitless, summer in a row. I tried to see it last year but the strong winds and rain on the day put a stop to that. This year may be its last year, so I thought I would make an effort. The bird arrives from Africa, stakes out the same territory and sings from the same song posts year after year, it is never going to find a partner, t is so sad!!
I set off at 6:30am and arrived exactly 2 hours later, the side door is opened for bird-watchers at 8:15am so my timing was perfect. A number of birds were on my target list but the Bluethroat was the most wanted and so I walked directly to the 'Summer Walk' and the 'Shepherd's Hide on the raised bank overlooking the reedbeds and the River Seven.
I had a nice surpirsed when Mike Hails, Nick Silbeck and Paul Edlin turned up, it was great to see them and it wasn't long before the Bluethroat turned up. The bird uses the same song posts each year, but they are all distant from where we stood. Even though the light was good, photographs were very difficult to take because of the distance and the heat haze.
the only recognisable shot I got of the Bluethroat
Not long after the Bluethroat showing Nick called out Bearded Tits, he heard one calling and soon we found a small family party of five. They were also distant, even further away than the Bluethroat! We watched them dashing about the reedbeds, five of them in total. We also watched Reed Bunting, Meadow Pipits, Skylarks and a few common species. On the river we could see Avocets, Common Shelduck, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Curlew and lots of Gulls.
there are three Green Sandpipers in this picture!
We made our way back to the visitor's centre for a coffee and a cake and along the way we visited a couple of the bird hides where we found Green Sandpipers (7), Redshank, Lapwings, Teal, Mallard and Gadwall.
During our coffee break we were joined by Mai and Richard Geeson, how nice to see them too! We then walked to the Hogarth Hide where a good number of waders could be seen on South Lake. A large flock of Black-tailed Godwits were joined by a greater number of Avocets, many of the latter had chicks. Also with the group was a few Common Redshank and couple of colourful Ruff and our main target bird the Spotted Redshank. At the back of the pool stood two tall, adult, Common Cranes with many ducks swimming about.
Avocets, Oystercatcher, Black-tailed Godwits and a Redshank
the scruffy-looking Spotted Redshank can be seen in the middle of the picture
the bird on the right is a Ruff, flapping its wings, with lots of black feathering on its underside
From there we walked the entire length of the display area of the site we passed many display pools and I got qiute a list of the world's wildfowl including six species of Flamingos.
Common Cranes have bred once again at Slimbridge
The Zeis Hide overlooks a couple of wader scrapes, some reedbeds and a large expanse of grassland. In the pools were very few birds, but the muddy surrounds was populated with a few waders and lots of Lapwings, two more Common Cranes stood nearby. We found three species of Sandpipers, Common, Green and our target bird the Wood Sandpiper. This bird was distant but identifiable in the scope.
a Green Sandpiper from the Zeiss Hide
Well, after a short while we decided to call it a day, Paul, Nick and Mike walked off to the car park and I went off to find some dragonflies to photograph. I only found Black-tailed Skimmer and my pictures were pants!
I got home by 3pm after a pleasant drive down the M5, its no often you hear me say that!!