At a loose end on Monday I decided on a visit to Slimbridge WWT (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) which is situated an hour's drive west of my home, by the River Severn in the neighbouring county of Gloucestershire. I get a daily update on my phone from the admirable The Gloster Birder website - http://the glosterbirder.co.uk - which includes daily sightings from Slimbridge.
For the past few days a Temminck's Stint and several Bitterns have featured prominently in the updates, the former being seen from the small hide overlooking the Rushy Pen near to the Trust's reception centre and the latter, which are annual winter visitors to Slimbridge from the Van de Bovenkamp hide at the other end of the Trust's grounds.
With hopes of encountering both I set off, not too early on a pleasant but windy morning.The drive at this time of year over the top of The Cotswolds is always something to look forward to as I pass along rural roads cloistered by trees be-decked in the yellows and oranges of autumnal colour and beyond them lie wide vistas of gentle contoured land undulating into the distance.
My reverie came to an abrupt halt as I waited in a line of traffic to pass through the huge £460 million roadworks at the Air Balloon junction near the M5 that will continue until 2027. The brutal gouging of the land required to remove a notorious bottleneck is I suppose necessary but one does ask when if ever will it stop, this subverting of nature in the name of so called economic progress.
HS2 anyone?
The grounds at Slimbridge were busy for a Monday and then I realised it was half term so lots of parents had brought their offspring for a day out but most head for the main play areas whilst we birders head for the hides and it seems to work without undue irritation. After all the children are the future and any connection with nature however contrived is to be welcomed so no complaints from me.
I made my way to the Rushy Hide and was surprised to find it full when I entered, presumably its popularity due to it currently being the place to encounter the Temminck's Stint.I stood at the back for a while until someone left and a space opened up for me by a viewing window.I looked out but it was obvious on checking the scrapes that the stint was not here and eventually a volunteer warden came and advised it had been seen to fly off earlier that morning and had not returned.
Cue a rapid emptying of the hide leaving me and a few others wondering whether to stay or go elsewhere.
To be honest I was not expecting this turn of events, assuming wrongly that the stint would definitely be here just as it had been for all the other days prior to this. Pondering my situation I recalled that a few years ago from this very hide there was a White rumped Sandpiper that did the self same thing and disappeared in the morning only to return later in the day see here. That time I wandered off to photograph ducks and cranes and any other birds the Trust could offer and returned to the Rushy Hide in the afternoon to find the sandpiper had come back. Birds are creatures of habit and I felt in my bones that there was a good chance the stint would do likewise as it obviously preferred to feed on the Rushy Pen above all other places.
So what to do in the meantime? It was obvious. I would make my way to the Van de Bovenkamp Hide and chance my luck with the Bitterns of which up to three had been reported from there.
One would do!
It is a fair walk to the hide through the grounds but I eventually took a seat in the sparsely populated hide and looked out to a view of fields, flashes of water and extensive reedbeds but not a lot else apart from some Shovelers feeding in the nearest stretch of water and a host of Canada Geese and three Common Cranes beyond. Enquiring of a fellow birder about the Bitterns I was told they could be seen from the various banks of reeds opposite the hide but none had been on view so far.
Maybe it was too windy? I settled on a none too comfortable hard wooden bench and prepared for a long vigil. Bitterns being what they are spend most of their time secreted in reed beds but occasionally will reveal themselves either by flying from one reed bed to another or raising their neck, akin to a periscope, out of the reeds to scan the land about them.
Thirty minutes later it was not looking good and with the wind becoming increasingly irksome, blowing cold and directly into my face through the open viewing slats, my spirits were sinking fast. Then in a reedbed off to my right where there had for the last thirty minutes been only tasselled feathery reed heads blowing in the wind, a tawny, dark striped neck stood proud and erect amongst them surmounted by a narrow thick billed head held at forty five degress. A Bittern.
Its pale tawny colouring made it obvious against the darker green of the reeds and, as Bitterns do it just stood there with neck extended vertically as far as it could go.Bitterns never do anything in a hurry and it stood statuesque like this for minutes, the only movement an occasional turning of its head either to left or right.What goes through that tiny brain is anyone's guess but I suspect its innately cautious personality persuades it that everything must be checked to the utmost before making a move into the open.
Finally after yet more studied immobility, it rose clumsily from the reeds and flew low past the hide giving me a heaven sent chance to capture it in flight.
Bulky, cryptically coloured and patterned, buff, black and brown. the shades of dead reeds, it flew past at no great distance and dropped behind a bank of reeds to the left of the hide where it remained invisible. An image of broad chequered wings and huge, bunched yellow feet were all I registered at this precise moment. The rest I could savour by looking at my photos. I prayed that they would come out satisfactorily.
This sudden and unexpected stroke of good fortune changed my mood in an instant and the cold wind and hard bench no longer intruded as a feeling of deep content settled within me. I hoped the Bittern or maybe another would come back into view but after twenty minutes it suddenly rose from its hiding place in the reeds and too fast for my camera, flew further west and out of view. Another twenty minutes elapsed and it flew back but continued flying well past the hide until it reached a distant reed bed and dropped into it, again rendering itself invisible.
With one part of my mission so thrillingly successful I decided to head back to the Rushy Hide to see if by any chance the Temminck's Stint had returned. The hide as before was full but I soon got a place by a viewing window and looked out onto the familiar scrapes and shallow pools.There was no obvious sign of the stint and I got the feeling that everyone was waiting and hoping just like myself
But were we deluding ourselves?
I decided to give it an hour which would take me to 2pm
Ten minutes slowly passed by and then the tiny bird was spotted flying onto a distant scrape, landing amongst some resting Lapwings. You could feel everyone in the hide become animated and could almost touch the surge of energy that ran through all of us.
The stint fed non stop amongst the Lapwings, which totally dwarfed it, scuttling back and fore around the bigger birds, forever restless, picking at the wet mud in search of microscopic prey.It was currently far too distant for photos but I knew it had been seen and photographed much closer to the hide on previous days. I hoped it would slowly work its way closer and my hopes were realised as it came progressively nearer and nearer to the hide.
It took a while but after forty minutes it had gravitated much closer as it continued to feed energetically, never stopping for a moment.
Finally it flew to the edge of the grass bank below the hide and I really could not ask for more and took far too many photos while people unfamiliar with a Temminck's Stint but curious, came and went in the hide and were shown the stint through a volunteer's telescope.
Temminck's Stints are very small indeed and in any plumage are, let's face it unremarkable, being plain and dull even drab.One of their main distinguishing features are their browniish yellow legs. Their head and upperparts are dull greyish brown with an obvious grey breast band across their white underparts making them look superficially like a miniature Common Sandpiper and at times it was hard to discern its dull plumage against the grey water and mud on which it was feeding.
They are a scarce passage migrant in Britain during Spring and Autumn. The majority breed in Arctic Russia and Siberia They also breed in the taiga zone of Arctic northern Europe and have occasionally but not annually bred in northern Scotland.The last suspected breeding record there being in 2007.
They migrate to winter around The Mediterranean and southwards to Nigeria and Kenya in tropical Africa and show a marked preference for freshwater or brackish habitats such as mudflats, marshes, reservoirs, gravel pits and flooded areas and on migration are usually encountered singly or in pairs.
For a while the stint flew off to the far side of the Rushy Pen and while it fed there I made the most of an opportunity to photograph some Common Snipe that were close to the hide, one in particular feeding literally feet below me on the bank, probing the soft ground with its extraordinarily long and sensitive bill, which it would bury to the hilt in the ground and then wiggle its head. using the ultra sensitive nerves at the bill's tip to sense any prey under the ground. Judging by the number of times it swallowed something it was meeting with much success.
I confess to having a bit of a thing for snipe.Their plumage is a marvel of vermiculations, bars, spots and stripes in all shades of buff and brown, a result of evolution to provide and protect the bird with camouflage from its enemies. Combine this with its distinctly non aesthetic outline of long bill, short tail and legs giving it a slightly unbalanced look but not without charm, and of course everyone loves a maverick do they not? Again though the short sturdy legs have evolved to brace it as it thrusts that ridiculously long bill deep into the soft earth to feed.
Slimbridge is one of the few places I know of where you can regularly see Common Snipe feeding in the open and going about their lives untroubled whereas normally they are furtive and secretive, concealing themselves deep in marshy recesses or stands of reeds.They are also pleasingly sociable often seeking the company of others of their kind.
The Temminck's Stint returned from its distant foray and I took some more photos and then it was chased by a Rook, the two birds hurtling at high speed low over the water until the chase ended and the stint appeared to have fled.
After a slow and unpropitious start to my Slimbridge visit, from my point of view the day could only be deemed a success. News of an elusive Yellow browed Warbler nearby felt a step too far, having seen plenty on my recent trip to Shetland, so instead I headed for home, happy and more than satisfied with my four hours at Slimbridge WWT.
No comments:
Post a Comment