'Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust'  

by Bill Francis - 13th April 2010  

Bill Francis is a fellow of the RSPB & a volunteer at Slimbridge.

Sir Peter Scott first came to Slimbridge in 1945. He realised that if our wildlife was to flourish, he had to get the public interested. As well as being a founder of the Wildfowl Trust, he was instrumental in the foundation of the World Wide Fund for Nature. There were white fronted geese at Slimbridge and two lesser white fronted geese were spotted amongst them. Sir Peter realised that this was a good place for birds and decided to move his small collection of wild fowl there.

Constant improvements are being made to the site and the facilities widened. For instance there is now Toad Hall where there are displays of frogs, toads and newts. Swan Lake is being redesigned. Another major work at present is the rerouting of the water supply, so that a water channel runs through the middle of the site, with spurs off to the individual enclosures. At the end the water is recycled and returned to the start. In this way there is a better supply of fresh water to all the enclosures. There is a new canoe safari and a wet play area called Welly Boot Land. There is also a new hide – kingfisher hide. Kingfishers nest in a bank visible form the hide and when they are feeding their young they can be seen coming and going. Other areas include Back from the Brink, showing the wetlands as they were 10,000 years ago. There are displays of various animals including American river otters, harvest mice, and water voles. Others facilities include a Land rover safari and Puddleduck corner for domesticated geese. This autumn it is hoped to open a new wader lagoon.

There were photographs of various birds in the collection. These included The Carolina Wood Duck, closely related to the Mandarin duck, Crested Screamers from South America, White faced whistling ducks with their very distinctive call and Cape Barren Geese from Australia who can drink sea water. Slimbridge is the only place in Europe to have all 6 species of flamingo.

There are another eight other wildlife centres in the United Kingdom: Arundel in Sussex where there are silent electric motor boats which take you around the reed beds. Caerlaverock in Dumfriesshire where there were originally 6000 barnacle geese and numbers have now grown to 30,000. Castle Espie on Strangford Loch in Northern Ireland with the largest concentration of wintering light breasted Brent geese. Llanelli in South Wales on the north bank of the Bristol Channel. The London Wetland Centre (Sir Peter Scott’s last project). Here four concrete reservoirs became redundant and were turned into a wetland centre. Despite being under the flight path for Heathrow, little ringed plovers nest and there are resident sand martins in a purpose built bank., Martin Mere in Lancashire, a major wintering ground for pink footed geese. Welney in Norfolk with wintering Whooper and Bewick’s swans. Washington in Tyne and Wear with a heronry of 30 pairs.

The Trust is also involved with conservation world wide. Some of these projects include nest boxes for Scaly-sided Mergansers in Siberia, the common crane, the Nene and the Laysan Teal. Several of these species have had young raised at Slimbridge and then returned to their original home. The wildfowl breeding at Slimbridge is carefully controlled. The eggs are artificially raised so the success rate increases to 90%.

At Slimbridge there are 120 acres of collection birds and a further 680 acres outside the wire. In the outside area, White fronted geese over winter and many waders are seen with plenty of rarer visitors. The water flow is controlled by sluice gates to allow areas to become wetter and encourage waders to breed. Pest control is another important task, problems are caused by crows, rats and mink.

Bird ringing is undertaken to help migration studies. Various methods are used to catch the birds including the Decoy Pool, rocket netting and catching the geese while they are flightless. The Bewick’s swans can be recognised by their beak pattern and some individual birds have been recorded on the site for 20 years.

This was an interesting talk on Slimbridge and will certainly enable us to see everything in a new light on our next visit.

Melanie Parker