Sunday 2 February 2014

Far from the maddening crowd.....Not

With the forecast for ongoing showers, I decided to do some birding somewhere were shelter could be found so decided to head over the bridge to Slimbridge - bad move! the place was heaving, getting in was bad enough as there was some event on with stands selling optic's, painting, clothing and Hols, etc. in the foyer.
Quickly (well, as quickly as I could) I made my way down t the Tower hide over looking the Dumbles. The Dumbles didn't exist as the tide had completely covered it, but fortuately the tide was on the way out and the levels dropped, though the saltmarsh never really managed to shed it's covering of water.

As the tide receded the Dumbles filled with thousands of Lapwing and Golden Plover, hundreds of Wigeon, Teal, etc. Amongst these was a single Bar-tailed Godwit, a Little Stint, 3 Knot and a Dark-bellied Brant.While in the distance (towards the Zeiss hide) a pair of Crane (from the re-intro project) strutted their stuff.

A visit to the "back from the brink" tropic house gave great views of some now familiar species and a few that I would love to see in the wild, particularly the Chestnut-backed Thrush.



2 comments:

  1. Smart birds mart . We have seen one of them,Orange headed thrush. In goa

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  2. Yeah, the Orange-headed Thrush almost hopped onto my boot, it was that tame - the camera, was in de-fog mode at that point!, but the Chestnut-backed is a right beauty

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