My Blog - Jeff Clarke

Globetrotters

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All images unless otherwise stated © Jeff Clarke 2011

I spent Saturday 12th February leading an adult education group at Slimbridge WWT Reserve in Gloucestershire.The weather was
stunning and the views of the ducks, swans and geese were beautifully illuminated.

Slimbridge is the winter home of some marathon migrators. The most emblematic of which are the 300+ Bewick's Swans whose
journey from the arctic tundra of Russia brings them westward. Alongside them are up to 3000 Russian White-fronted Geese.
From the opposite side of the hemisphere they were joined by an unexpected visitor in the shape of a female Lesser Scaup. This
bird had arrived a month, or so, ago and certainly provided stellar views as it relaxed in front of a the Robbie Garnett Hide together with a
large number of Pochard and Tufted ducks for company. I'm not really a person who likes hides, but this one one was excellent
and the close proximity of the birds proved its worth.

Another duck to catch the eye was a female Pochard with a nasal tag (see pics). Initial research suggests this bird was tagged in Europe. After a bit of research and a fantastic response from Alain Caizergues and David Rodrigues, it turns out this bird was tagged in France. Alain kindly supplied the full data on this bird movements. Click here to download the pdf data. For more information on nasal tagging of wildfowl click here.

Towards the end of the day we had close scope views of 'sinensis' and 'carbo' Great Cormorants adjacent to each other. My money
is on these two 'sub-species' being split in the near future. Hopefully this will put a spanner in the works for those calling for
culling licenses