Theres nothing quite more thrilling than a stunning sunny winters day at Slimbridge WWT nature reserve. What an incredible place, not just for wildlife, but for people of all kinds. Families having a fun filled day observing, playing and learning, all the while, serious birders getting some fantastic views of truly massive numbers of wintering wildfowl & waders with their predators in the mix. Every now and again you're reminded of the amount of conservation work that has taken place their also, with plenty of ringed / satellite tagged birds out on the reserves. It's by far the best place for photography out of all of the WWT reserves I've been to, as the hides are setup with photographers in mind, with the sun at your back and the wildlife up close and personal. How they've achieved all this is beyond me, but it proves it can be done! I know you have to pay to get in, or pay membership fees, but in my opinion, it's worth every penny because you get so much back from it. You only need look at my photographs below to see that and these are only a hand-full of photo's that I took yesterday. Two views of hunting Peregrines in a place that I last saw a hunting Goshawk over the meadows on my last visit. I hope you enjoy my images below. The Water Rail has to be my favourite as it needed to cross the ice to get to the other side of the pond where the water had thawed in the sun. That said, there were lots of incredible moments, perhaps I'll post the images separately and talk about them individually on a later date. For now, enjoy.
