Friday 26 August 2022

SLIMBRIDGE WADERS

 Having set myself a new yearly bird species target, I went over to Slimbridge WWT centre to see if I could add to my current total. I've not been for a little while so also decided to book myself a place on the morning 'Landrover safari' too. 

I spent the hour or so before the Landrover trip on the Holden Walkway side of the reserve, particularly at the Rushy Hide which had a good number of waders present, including two greenshanks which so far I've not seen this year. 

The Landrover Safari took us across  some different parts of the reserve, including some reed beds  which have matured extremely well after just two years since  making from just a field.  We looked under a number of corrugated pieces of metal but only found one grass snake, which hurriedly disappeared. There were not a great number of different bird species to be seen but above a recently cut meadow about 7 buzzards were circling and there were also curlews on the estuary. A number of dragonflies were present including a migrant hawker dragonfly which remained perched for quite a while in a tree beside the track. 

Back at the centre I walked down to the Zeiss hide to locate a couple of spoonbill  which were also new for this year. 

black tailed godwit


migrant hawker dragonfly



grey wagtail





greenshank

two greenshank

ruff

greenshank



ruff

greenshank and ruff




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