We went looking for winter wildfowl and waders and we weren’t disappointed. There were tens of thousands of birds in and around Slimbridge and we were lucky to get great views of them in the sun. Even the WWT volunteers and staff seemed taken aback by the numbers.
The key species at this time of year are Bewick’s swans, Russian white-fronted geese, cranes, wigeon, teal, lapwing, dunlin and golden plover and we managed good views of all those, but also saw the rarer Tundra bean geese and two little stints. The highlight was probably some great views of a juvenile goshawk, often sitting in a tree, but then flying to the ground in front of us, albeit at quite a distance.
