Just caught up with reading some of the reports on here the one that caught my eye was the one about the Madagascan Pochard I have a feeling these were infact White eyed ducks if it's were I think it was just past the gate to the hides was it.
Slimbridge WWT Slimbridge WWT
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Paid a visit again yesterday;
There were about 100 Bewick Swans, several with their families of cygnets. I must have seen nearly all the cranes in the Slimbridge sub-population, including five closeup from the hides on (is it?) the Tack Piece, more from the Holden tower and later also seven in flight etc, my best views ever.
I was thinking how the collections were in Peter Scott's day- the main 'lawn' was full of Hawaiian and other species of geese and the various smaller enclosures with their own geographical collections of the smaller ducks etc. carefully presented. Nowadays it all feels rather different with far less attention to detail in presentation- huge numbers of feral greylags (never to be seen in the old days) overrun the site everywhere and many pens have numbers of common shelduck and other natives using them too, while the specialist non-natives seem rather diminished. The arctic geese, of which there used to be many, are now mainly confined to one 'by the way' small exhibit 'geese of the world' and the Hawaiians are few. I know times have changed and the emphasis nowadays is on 'Wetlands' as much as 'Wildfowl' but it does seem a sad change for me.
There were about 100 Bewick Swans, several with their families of cygnets. I must have seen nearly all the cranes in the Slimbridge sub-population, including five closeup from the hides on (is it?) the Tack Piece, more from the Holden tower and later also seven in flight etc, my best views ever.
I was thinking how the collections were in Peter Scott's day- the main 'lawn' was full of Hawaiian and other species of geese and the various smaller enclosures with their own geographical collections of the smaller ducks etc. carefully presented. Nowadays it all feels rather different with far less attention to detail in presentation- huge numbers of feral greylags (never to be seen in the old days) overrun the site everywhere and many pens have numbers of common shelduck and other natives using them too, while the specialist non-natives seem rather diminished. The arctic geese, of which there used to be many, are now mainly confined to one 'by the way' small exhibit 'geese of the world' and the Hawaiians are few. I know times have changed and the emphasis nowadays is on 'Wetlands' as much as 'Wildfowl' but it does seem a sad change for me.
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I first visited Slimbridge when I was on teaching practice in Gloucester in 1974. I remember an after-school visit with the bird-watching club, which was quite an experience: we went to the top of the Holden Tower to view the thousand or so white-fronted geese on the western half of Tack Piece. I was amazed both by the sheer number of birds and by the way that the Year 7 lad next to me could pick out a lesser white-front near the middle of the flock and two bean geese near the far hedge (I presume he was right, I couldn't spot them at all). Much smaller numbers of white-fronts reach Slimbridge now, most stay in Holland in our milder winters.
In those days the central area of the collection was divided into many smaller pens, some of which were reserved for more aggressive species and others for groups several smaller species. The flamingos and many of the geese and swans were allowed to raise their own young, but I think that almost all the ducks' eggs were collected from the pens and the ducklings were hatched and reared in the Duckery (off-show except for a few tours on special days). Now most of the breeding ducks are kept off-show.
At that time the only other Wildfowl Trust collection was at Peakirk in Cambridgeshire, which was just a back-up for Slimbridge on a very small site. The establishment of the new reserves for wild birds at Welney and Caerlaverock did not make much difference to Slimbridge, but the development of collections at Martin Mere and Washington dispersed some of the captive flocks. In particular the opening of the collection at Arundel meant that the sea ducks could be given much better conditions with clear water filtered through the chalk, reducing the diversity of the collection at Slimbridge. The dispersion of the collection continued with the opening of further centres at Castle Espie, Llanelli and London. I think it was very constructive idea to widen the range of the collections to include all the other wetland creatures; it does mean extra American and Asian small-clawed otters in the collections, but the work of WWT with cranes and the encouragement of species like kingfishers and sand martins is good for public awareness of the birds and their habitats. However I do miss the old Guiness aviary next to the Tropical House at Slimbridge where some of the rarer and more delicate species were kept, including the Trust's first white-winged wood ducks and the pink-eared ducks.
In those days the central area of the collection was divided into many smaller pens, some of which were reserved for more aggressive species and others for groups several smaller species. The flamingos and many of the geese and swans were allowed to raise their own young, but I think that almost all the ducks' eggs were collected from the pens and the ducklings were hatched and reared in the Duckery (off-show except for a few tours on special days). Now most of the breeding ducks are kept off-show.
At that time the only other Wildfowl Trust collection was at Peakirk in Cambridgeshire, which was just a back-up for Slimbridge on a very small site. The establishment of the new reserves for wild birds at Welney and Caerlaverock did not make much difference to Slimbridge, but the development of collections at Martin Mere and Washington dispersed some of the captive flocks. In particular the opening of the collection at Arundel meant that the sea ducks could be given much better conditions with clear water filtered through the chalk, reducing the diversity of the collection at Slimbridge. The dispersion of the collection continued with the opening of further centres at Castle Espie, Llanelli and London. I think it was very constructive idea to widen the range of the collections to include all the other wetland creatures; it does mean extra American and Asian small-clawed otters in the collections, but the work of WWT with cranes and the encouragement of species like kingfishers and sand martins is good for public awareness of the birds and their habitats. However I do miss the old Guiness aviary next to the Tropical House at Slimbridge where some of the rarer and more delicate species were kept, including the Trust's first white-winged wood ducks and the pink-eared ducks.
This was the true hidden gem of Slim, it was a real shame when they decided to empty it. Same goes for the tropical house, but I am looking forward to the wetland theatre opening.
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
From what I can find Peakirk sat on a site of 14 acres with a further 3 added later. All of this was devoted to the collection, public car park, entrance building and tea room. Apart from a flock of Chilean Flamingos the whole collection was captive wildfowl (waterfowl); it had no waders, cranes, otters, bird reserves; and as such it certainly did not feel a very small site. Its water supply was always something of an issue with little of the inward flow ever flowing out, and lack of maintenance (especially not dredging pools, and neglecting its perimeter fencing) in its latter days, meant the site silted up very badly in the end. Few sea-duck were kept in captivity in those days, which were the heyday of British bird gardens, and Peakirk did quite well; it had a comprehensive collection, attracted between 30,000 and 60,000 visitors annually, and bred a lot of birds and generated a fair bit of revenue, both of which were swallowed up by Slimbridge; with little or nothing invested in return.
There's very little information online about the species which were held at Peakirk - given the fact that seaducks are perhaps my favourite group of waterfowl, and precious few are around in UK collections now with the exception of the native subspecies of Common Eider, I suspect I would have quite liked the place.
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
As a prompt, I've just dug a out a copy of the Silver Jubilee guide-book from 1977, so quite late on really when Caerlaverock, Arundel, Washington, Martin Mere, Welney and Peakirk were all in operation with the local Borough Fen duck decoy being operated too, from Peakirk. The guide is largely a re-cover of the general WT edition, but does include a map and half a dozen pages of text and b/w pictures describing the enclosures at Peakirk.
My own memory tallies which much of what it lists, as 650 birds of 80 spp and confirming 17 acres. The collection was broad, and I guess would have contained all or most of the dabbling and diving ducks kept at the time along with pens for all the Shelducks and Sheldgeese, though not Kelp of course. The house pond and flamingo enclosure had some nicer birds such as Hooded Merganser and Smew, both major rarities in the day, and good water from a bore-hole. Two separate pens by the exit to this area held Cereopsis Geese and White-winged Wood Ducks, both very 'special' at the time. It really was a snap-shot of its day, as others I remember such as both Patagonian and Andean Crested Ducks and Baer's Pochards were common and mixed on the main ponds with the commoner spp including large flocks of Ross's, Emperor, NeNe, Lesser White-front and Red-breasted Geese, all then relatively 'select'. The Chilean Flamingos bred, and though I cant recall Whistling and Bewicks, certainly all the other Swans were there in breeding pairs.
Lots of waterfowl were reared and the Trust produced an annual price-list of available stock for sale to the general public and private collectors; as was done by Stagsden, Kelling Park, Norfolk Wildlife Park and such major breeding collections at the time, including large private ones at Daws Hall, Bassmead, Smallburgh, Ixworth etc.
I must have older guides and family photos tucked away, as all were regular destinations for us in the 1960s and 70s.
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This is what I miss rather about the 'modern' Slimbridge. There are now several larger pens still geographically themed but the native duck species in each nowadays seem rather fewer and there are many interlopers. There are still seperate pens for the aggressive sheld-geese but I think the species have been reduced here too, I saw only five species.
Intresting video about Slimbridge's work on saving the Hawaii goose 
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Not sure of this as been put on here but here are some details of the new projects for Slimbridge WWT over the next couple of years -
Your new Slimbridge | WWT
Your new Slimbridge | WWT
I've only just found that WWT has regular update videos posted on YouTube, especially Slimbridge. Here are some pieces of news I have found from the videos (note that these are all from previous years, albeit mostly last year):
- A pair of pink-backed pelicans has arrived and are being trained off-show in the Duckery; they will be used in the bird show in the Living Wetlands Theatre. They are, I believe, the first pelicans held at Slimbridge. The news comes from the April 2018 video included below:
- The August 2017 video shows that two species of glass frog arrived and were off-show in the Toad Hall facility. One of them, the reticulated or La Palma glass frog Hyalinobatrachium valerioi, was successfully bred in 2018. The other species, which I cannot catch the common name of, is a male-only group. The news about the arrival of the two species comes from the video below:
The video from June 2018 shows the successful breeding of the reticulated glass frogs as well as the tiger-legged monkey frogs:
- A pair of pink-backed pelicans has arrived and are being trained off-show in the Duckery; they will be used in the bird show in the Living Wetlands Theatre. They are, I believe, the first pelicans held at Slimbridge. The news comes from the April 2018 video included below:
- The August 2017 video shows that two species of glass frog arrived and were off-show in the Toad Hall facility. One of them, the reticulated or La Palma glass frog Hyalinobatrachium valerioi, was successfully bred in 2018. The other species, which I cannot catch the common name of, is a male-only group. The news about the arrival of the two species comes from the video below:
The video from June 2018 shows the successful breeding of the reticulated glass frogs as well as the tiger-legged monkey frogs:
News from this year - Lake Titicaca water frogs Telmatobius culeus have joined the collection from Denver Zoo, coming via an import to Chester Zoo. The information comes from the public Instagram page of the head amphibian keeper at Slimbridge (included below):
Amphibians Jay Redbond (@amphibs) • Instagram photos and videos
Other species of amphibian recently shown at Slimbridge on the page that are not mentioned on Zootierliste include the crowned tree frog Triprion spinosus, Italian cave salamander Speleomantes italicus, Macedonian crested newt Triturus macedonicus, Kaiser's spotted newt Neurergus kaiseri, bumblebee walking toad Melanophryniscus stelzneri, Javan horned frog Megophrys montana, spectacled salamander Salamandrina terdigitata and Asian bullfrog Kaloula pulchra, the latter species being bred in captivity for only the second time at Slimbridge in October 2018.
Amphibians Jay Redbond (@amphibs) • Instagram photos and videos
Other species of amphibian recently shown at Slimbridge on the page that are not mentioned on Zootierliste include the crowned tree frog Triprion spinosus, Italian cave salamander Speleomantes italicus, Macedonian crested newt Triturus macedonicus, Kaiser's spotted newt Neurergus kaiseri, bumblebee walking toad Melanophryniscus stelzneri, Javan horned frog Megophrys montana, spectacled salamander Salamandrina terdigitata and Asian bullfrog Kaloula pulchra, the latter species being bred in captivity for only the second time at Slimbridge in October 2018.
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I will be visiting on the 28th April I would like to know if anyone would like me to do a pool by pool species list also would you like me to put a wild bird species seen list on here?
That would be really helpful!
You may have some difficulty owing to the large numbers of feral greylag geese and other 'locals' which also inhabit a lot of the pens these days, alongside the genuine species in each.
Any news on the wild cranes potential nesting situation would be interesting.
The signs for each pen are reasonably accurate , but there is a drift of certain species , particularly Hawaiian geese , from their 'designated' pen . Also , as Pertinax notes , there are many greylag geese , mute swan , mallard , moorhen , coot and other wild species present in large numbers across the site.
For wild species , check the Slimbridge website as there is an almost daily report on recent wildlife sightings . This will vary from day to day as many species pass through . The guides in the hides are very helpful in terms of rarer species . I also find the Slimbridge regular birders to be generally friendly and helpful .
Many thanks for the helpful info I am a regular at Slimbridge so will only mark down the Species allocated to each pool but will then do a ranging species over the captive site I will hopefully do a full list of wild species from the hides as the latest sightings only covers the rarer species.
We have many beginners in birding so will put the resident species on the list.
Will ask about the Cranes as would love to know more myself and will update on the Spoon-Billed Sandpipers as well.
We have many beginners in birding so will put the resident species on the list.
Will ask about the Cranes as would love to know more myself and will update on the Spoon-Billed Sandpipers as well.
They are not.
Oh that's a shame. I didn't think they were but thanks for confirming.