A Visit to Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust

We have been planning to visit this place since many, many moons ago!!! Babe promised me that we’ll go on the first sunny day. And guess what…we were on our way to work on a lovely, bright Tuesday morning and we looked at each other. I called the office and informed SH that I’m taking another day off…Make hay when the sun shines comes into mind.

We went back to the casa and changed into our camouflaged gears. Babe checked the weather forecast and printed out the route, in case the GPS decides to take us somewhere else. We left at 9.55am, looking forward to our trip. We sang to the songs from my new Millennium hits along the way.

The journey was relatively easy and was well sign-posted. We arrived here at 11.15 am. It took us about 1.20 hour to travel 86.6miles. From a distance we could see the Sloane Tower which rises above the visitor centre. The car park was buzzing. We walked a gangway leading up to the main reception area where we spotted a pair of wagtails hunting on the roof. After paying £9.75 each, we began our adventure. I’m bursting with excitement.

We walked out to a small walkway over a couple of man-made lakes and were greeted with over-friendly swans. We find it a bit strange that visitors were encouraged to hand feed them. There was a stand where you can purchase a bag of seeds for £1, I think. We spotted a few swallows flying in and out of the building.

We walked on landscaped gardens bisected by paved walkways, allowing visitors to view and interact with the birds. The first thing that I wanted to see most was the rare Nene goose (or Hawaiian Goose). Slimbridge WWT was instrumental in the successful breeding of these geese in captivity. Under the direction of Sir Peter Scott, it was bred back from the brink of extinction during the 1950’s for later re-introduction into the wild in Hawaii. And they were doing very well here.

We continued towards the kiosk and were totally taken aback by the different species of ducks of various colours. Some of them just blew my mind away. I’m not going to identify any of them cos they were just too many. They do put identification panels but the water fowls were not always there.

We passed the first enclosure of flamingos, the Lesser Flamingos. Slimbridge WWT is the only place in the UK where you can see all six species of flamingo. You can hear them from a distance away and lovely to watch but also extremely smelly! How such a graceful bird smell so bad is beyond me.

We passed through the Otter Pool. I was hoping to see one and she obliged by making her presence felt. She swam in a pond which can be viewed from behind a glass screen. Then she popped onto a pile of wood in the middle of the pond and started rearranging the wood. It was such a rare treat for me to have such a close encounter with this handsome mammal.

As we continued walking, we startled a crane who was feeding near the enclosure. The cranes were part of the ‘Back from the Brink Project’ which took us on a journey back in time to Mesolithic Britain when the wetlands were very different places. We soaked up the atmosphere from the thatched hut, overlooking the beaver's lake, observing these elegant birds in their habitat.

Slimbridge was divided into regional areas, North and East Asia, South Asia, Europe, North America, Africa and the Frozen North with identification boards in each area.  I don’t see the point of these divisions as the birds were free to roam throughout the centre. We saw similar species throughout the reserve. These areas were also separated with gates. Why? Birds fly…

We were very lucky when we arrived just in time for the Greater Flamingos to be fed.  We could hear the goose-like honking call from a distant.  These gregarious birds have pinkish-white plumage, but the wing coverts were red and the primary and secondary flight feathers black. What a striking combination.

As we continued on, we were suddenly engulfed with a very vocal, very high, reedy whistle, "tsree-tsree-tsreeo,". What on earth was that? It was a flock of whistling ducks making themselves heard. There were White faced, Plumed and Wandering ducks. It was lunch time and they wanted to be fed. You just can’t simply ignore them. Very striking and very, very noisy. You can’t miss them.

At the Puddleduck Corner, domesticated geese and ducks were in abundance. I’m sure you have seen them but I bet you haven’t seen this, a Rouen duck. A heavyweight breed of domesticated duck raised primarily for decoration. It resembled a Mallard but are brighter in colour and at least 3 times the size. That’s a lot of crispy ducks :-)

We hopped over stepping stones to see the very pinky and orangey Chilean and Andean Flamingos.  Of the six species of flamingo in the world, the Andean is the rarest. The head, neck and breast have a wine-red hue, and it is the only flamingo with yellow legs. They were also the only flamingos that stayed away from the crowd.

We walked through the Play & Picnic area to get to the hides. We were shocked to see children chasing a Nene!!! This poor bird was in the wrong enclosure. Where were the parents? Now we know why these birds were nearly extinct and why there were gates…It’s to stop the birds being harassed!!!

The hides that we’ve been to were a let-down. I wonder what we were supposed to see. Perhaps in winter when the geese were grazing. The kingfisher hide was soo noisy. We could see the holes in the river-banks but I doubt any kingfisher will be around with all the noise.

We walked back and checked out the Tropical House. It must have been here many years as it looked a bit rundown. A tree frog in a glass case greeted us. Inside we were taken aback with the humid atmosphere. Felt like home :-). Shoals of huge Koi and Goldfish  were swimming furiously in the water which flow around the house.

Along the route back to the visitor centre, we spotted Black-backed Radjah Shelducks, Cape Barren Goose, Black-Necked Swans, Chiloe Wigeon, Trumpeter Swans, Beswick Swans, Smew, Scaup, Stint, Red Crested Poochards, Northern Pintail, Andean Goose, Black Australian Goose and on and on…Babe who had a photographic memory couldn’t identify some of them.

We walked through the Toad Hall which was packed with kids so we gave it a miss. I bought a WWT fridge magnet from the gift shop. Outside the Water’s Edge Restaurant, we photographed a flock of Caribbean Flamingos.  There were supposed to be 6 but we saw only 5. We must have missed one species somewhere.

Slimbridge is a real bird watcher's paradise. But, according to Babe, it was like taking photographs in a fish-bowl. Dubbed ‘the birthplace of modern conservation,’ we were really spoilt for choice on where to look. Rare and endangered species from around the world were protected and bred here.

We only managed to check-out about 60% of the reserve. The reserve, beyond the fox-proof fence, covers over 325 hectares in itself, so a Land Rover safari will be topping our list of to dos next time. The safari was cancelled when we were there. A climb to the top of the Sloane Tower, a visit to the  summer walkaway  and the different hides along the route towards the Severn Estuary will also be on our next visit. A mandarin duck is also included in the list. Couldn’t wait…

I can’t remember the names of the waterfowls on the first 2 and last 2 photographs. I’ve included them because they were just too gorgeous. We’d taken 2k shots on this visit alone.