It
was not long before they swam further away and I wandered along. It
was almost time for the next walk/talk I had booked in for - on
'Scalies & Scoters' with Warden Sam. Before she began, I took a
photo or two of the birds that were the subject of the talk.
These
were the scaly merganzers in the waterfall exhibit where the talk was
held. The lecture informed us of the facts around the birth of young
to the exhibited birds and how Arundel WWT was achieving compared to
others around the country and world to ensure these species continue
both in captivity and the wild.
As
you can see from the info-board, they are a threatened species - but
here is evidence of the local success story - a bunch of this years
youngsters!
This
pair of Nenes kept waddling about near me as I wandered back past the
blacknecked swans to continue my day out. There are two ways to tell
which is the male and which the female. Firstly, the female is
slightly smaller than the male - and secondly, the female wears the
metal tag on the LEFT leg, whereas the male wears his metal tag on
the RIGHT.
I
then decided to go on the boat trip. I have been several times
before, but tend to go if I have enough time and the cue is small
enough to allow me on the next ride if the boat is approaching or
ready to go. On this occasion, a family trio and I were the sole passengers
and had an enjoyable trip which must have taken longer than the usual
20 minutes as we saw quite a lot this time. Both the family and I had
been on the boat trips before. As I got to the stage, preparing to
climb aboard I spotted a mommy and cygnet swan.
This
shot is one of the birds we noted on our trip - the gadwell. We also
encountered the sound of a kingfisher, a kestrel in a willow tree,
several dragonflies, overgrown sedge, a wooden barrier walkway...
Lots of interesting talks on that day. How often do they do stuff like that?
ReplyDeleteevery so often - the next major event is in 2-3 weeks time - winter wellness weekend - i went to that last year you can taste test yoga, reiki, zero-balancing, etc...as well as have a cuppa and check-see the birds
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty nice.
ReplyDeletei am looking forward to it - not next weekend but the one after.
ReplyDelete