Slimbridge New Year

After a nice albeit gentle start to my birding for 2012 on New Year's day, myself, my birder's wife and Capt Blackeye decided to brave the crowds at Slimbridge on Bank Holiday Monday.  On the way there, we popped by Court Lake in Frampton, which unfortunately had nothing interesting to offer us except brilliant sunshine.  However, I noticed (when I was back home) that Goldeneye and Little Egret had been reported from that location.

Slimbridge, as predicted, was absolutely heaving, mostly with young families and grizzly kids, who probably would have preferred being curled up in front of the xbox.  Undeterred, we ambled over to the Zeiss Hide, where the Bitterns had been putting up a daily rendition of Hamlet, but, unfortunately we arrived too late and they had retreated into the reeds for the day not to be seen again.  Besides the lack of Bitterns and secretive Water Rails, the birding from hide was not too bad and it was not long before we had secured the usual Slimbridge goodies such as Bewick Swans, White Fronted Geese, Barnacle Geese, Widgeon and Teal.  A short lunch in the South Lake then brought us Dunlin and Oystercatcher.  Unfortunately, the female Lesser Scaup that had been hanging around the Rushy Pen, had been scared off by some kind of disturbance earlier in the day and we were unable to locate from either the Robbie Garnet Hide or the Holden Tower.  However, between them, those hides gave us Merlin, Peregrine, Buzzard, Ruff, Golden Plover and Black Tailed Godwit.  I also managed to later on spot a female wintering Blackcap by the Infocus shop.

The day was ended with the usual Bewick Swan feed which is alway done so well by the staff at Slimbridge.  After totting up my efforts for the last couple of days, I notice that I am on a respectable 8 misses already - Dipper, Grey Wagtail, Common Crossbill, Lesser Scaup, Bittern, Water Rail, Little Egret and Goldeneye.