January saw us going to a very different venue. Slimbridge is the main centre for the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust and was the home of Peter Scott for many years. This is an excellent reserve to visit in cold weather as there are many hides. I thought we would be making good use of the hides as it rained throughout our coach trip to Gloucester, but luckily, as we neared the reserve, the rain stopped, the sun came out and we enjoyed a beautiful (if a bit windy) winter day.

The reserve centre was rebuilt for the Millennium celebrations and includes a tower where you can get a panoramic view of the entire reserve, including the Severn estuary. There is also a good restaurant and exhibition rooms.

The pond immediately outside the visitor centre was full of birds, probably due to the fact that many people buy bags of corn and cannot wait to start feeding the birds. It was interesting to see birds such as Smew and Goldeneye and to be able to examine their plumage close up instead of seeing them as a mere dot in the distance in the middle of a lake.

We took the path that leads to a number of hides with views across the fields that surround the reserve. There were plenty of birds around on the ponds and grassland, including barnacle geese, Bewick Swans, and Snipe, with a Peregrine Falcon sitting in one of the trees. It was also good to see so many Lapwings.

As we returned to the visitor centre we went through the ‘penned’ area where birds from all around the world are kept. Admittedly it would be so much better to see these birds in their natural habitat but it is still interesting to see the large variety of ducks and geese plus the various breeds of flamingo.

Along from the captive birds, there is another series of hides overlooking fields and the Severn. From one hide we watched a buzzard trying to catch rabbits, who were frustrating the bird by diving under the thick hedgerow.

There is so much to see at Slimbridge and we did not have time to visit the tropical house or South Lake. We did look at the Water Vole enclosure but were not fortunate enough to see one. What I did notice was the large number of coots and moorhens and we even saw a moorhen climbing a tree.

Slimbridge is always an enjoyable place to visit and merits revisiting at different times of the year. The sunny weather had attracted large numbers of people but the reserve is so large that it did not seem crowded. As we left there was a huge flock of Starlings giving a spectacular aerial display against the backdrop of the setting sun.

Mary Attwood