A day with the birds

Yesterday, thanks to our friend Marie Turner, we spent the day at the Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust in Gloucestershire. She had given us a couple of complimentary tickets, and with the warm weather forecast we decided this would be a good day to drop our other commitments and go. Predictably I took some time to be ready; but Jane was patient. About 12.30 we were wending our way through Slimbridge and over the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. It was all curiously familiar - I suppose the last time I'd been there was about 50 years ago!

Foolishly, we'd not thought of booking an electric buggy and didn't notice any as we clocked in. So Jane had to push me round all day. What a hand! Driving three hours there and back and wheeling me miles round the place in between. No wonder she was tired when we got home. I do appreciate her, honest!

Anyway, here's the day in pictures.

View over the River Severn which Jane took
 as I couldn't climb the stairs in the hide

Our not entirely disinterested
lunch companion with enormous feet

We rather liked this chap,
?a foreign teal

Chilean and Andean flamingos - endangered species

My favourite view - from the Kingfisher Hide,
though the hard winter made them nest elsewhere, we learned

Amazing - another endangered species,
the harvest mouse is
tiny. Love its Latin name
Micromys minutus!

One of four otters we saw being fed.
Because it's illegal to feed live food,
you can't see them hunting down
their prey as in the wild.

The loveliest bird in Slimbridge on Tuesday. The twitchers missed her!

Thanks, Marie. (By the way, except for one or two hides, Slimbridge is very disabled friendly.)