Video series highlights - boom time for wetland birding as highest ever Shoveler numbers are recorded at WWT Slimbridge
In a new content share with our friends at WWT, we can now bring you some excellent video footage and weekly round-ups from one of the UK's finest wetland centres - Slimbridge.
With the recent wild weather, it's boom time for wetland birding. There’s around 50,000 birds of all species at WWT Slimbridge at the moment. There’s near-record numbers of golden plover, more than 4,000 at the moment, the record is just under 5,000. There’s also around 5,000 wigeon, 2,500 teal and several thousand lapwing. European white-fronted goose, Canada goose, dunlin and black-tailed godwit are other species showing well at the moment. A peregrine has been trying to take full advantage, but was bullied off its kill in full site of the hides by a buzzard.
This was also the week that the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust saw the highest ever total of shoveler in WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre’s 68 year history today - a whopping 323 of them. This is around double the number last year, and is a reversal of the declining trend in recent winters when freezing weather saw them migrate to mainland Europe instead. Shoveler are an amber listed species with less than 20,000 usually wintering in the UK.
Although Slimbridge’s wetlands are very wet, the Wetland Centre itself isn’t threatened by flooding and all accesses are open. Recent blue skies and low winter sun has attracted many photographers who’ve been taking photos of the thousands of birds, a scene that WWT’s late founder Sir Peter Scott used to refer to as Britain’s ‘avian Serengeti’.
WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre Reserve Manager Dave Paynter commented: “These floods are a fantastic opportunity for the birds to feed. Seeds are floating away from the plants, drifting to the edge of the water where the ducks can feed on them. Insects in the soil are rising to the surface to escape the flooding and they become more available to those feeding birds.”
www.wwt.org.uk/slimbridge
With the recent wild weather, it's boom time for wetland birding. There’s around 50,000 birds of all species at WWT Slimbridge at the moment. There’s near-record numbers of golden plover, more than 4,000 at the moment, the record is just under 5,000. There’s also around 5,000 wigeon, 2,500 teal and several thousand lapwing. European white-fronted goose, Canada goose, dunlin and black-tailed godwit are other species showing well at the moment. A peregrine has been trying to take full advantage, but was bullied off its kill in full site of the hides by a buzzard.
This was also the week that the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust saw the highest ever total of shoveler in WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre’s 68 year history today - a whopping 323 of them. This is around double the number last year, and is a reversal of the declining trend in recent winters when freezing weather saw them migrate to mainland Europe instead. Shoveler are an amber listed species with less than 20,000 usually wintering in the UK.
Although Slimbridge’s wetlands are very wet, the Wetland Centre itself isn’t threatened by flooding and all accesses are open. Recent blue skies and low winter sun has attracted many photographers who’ve been taking photos of the thousands of birds, a scene that WWT’s late founder Sir Peter Scott used to refer to as Britain’s ‘avian Serengeti’.
WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre Reserve Manager Dave Paynter commented: “These floods are a fantastic opportunity for the birds to feed. Seeds are floating away from the plants, drifting to the edge of the water where the ducks can feed on them. Insects in the soil are rising to the surface to escape the flooding and they become more available to those feeding birds.”
www.wwt.org.uk/slimbridge
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