Once more the white spotted bluethroat has decided to pay its annual visit to WWT Slimbridge. Its favoured location is in the reedbeds adjacent to the River Severn and it can be viewed from the summer walkway. Some taller sticks have been erected amongst the reed bed, providing suitable perches from which the bluethroat can sing, and at the same time give visiting birders an improved, though distant view.
I therefore paid a visit to Slimbridge this morning, making straight for the Shepherds Hut positioned on the sea wall, where visitors tend to congregate to get the best views. Within minutes the bluethroat had been pointed out to me, a dark shape amongst some distant reeds, but it wasn't long before it hopped onto the nearby post, enabling me to get a good view of its blue breast and white spot which gives the bird its name. It spent the next half hour moving around the area, sometimes unseen in the reeds before re appearing. I think I saw it at least four times in half an hour, which was probably the most frequent sightings I've had over the years. Always distant though, so the photos I took are very heavily cropped.
Back at the centre, there were many broods of goslings, of differing ages, together with coot and moorhen chicks and a brood of mallards. The first avocet chicks had also hatched. One of the pairs of cranes had hatched a chick but it was hidden in the vegetation although I could see one of the parents obviously attending to it.
Sedge and reed warblers were singing their hearts out, though not always easy to see. Not a large total of birds seen today, but nevertheless a lovely late spring morning to enjoy the sights and sounds of the centre.
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