Zoo Trip #45: Slimbridge WWT (26th March 2015)

Finally, I have finished editing the pictures I took on recent visits to Marwell Wildlife, Pallington Lakes and Slimbridge WWT, and so can post up my belated blip. The Slimbridge WWT online album is not yet complete at the time of writing but should be completely uploaded in the next day or two.

It was a somewhat bleary sleep-deprived Lozarithm that set off on Thursday morning for a blipmeet with Clean Steve but I was a little revived by a very pleasant cross-country back road drive in Spring sunshine over to Slimbridge and had an hour to explore on my own before the scheduled meeting, and was enjoying a picnic lunch when we met up.

The winter visitors had all departed and the spring visit replacements had only begun to arrive so it was relatively peaceful, and also enjoyably uncrowded as the Easter holidays had yet to begin. During our tour of the grounds we were fortunate to witness all three of the Slimbridge otter posse (Clean Steve has blipped a picture very similar to one of mine, so no need to duplicate here), a flurry of flamingos clearly disturbed by some unknown occurrence and some nesting swans. My attempt to see a bittern failed again, nor were the kingfishers obliging with an appearance, but we were lucky to have such fair weather to explore such beautiful surroundings. Rather than focus on any animal or group I have chosen a landscape taken within the grounds, the very last image of the day in fact, to convey the atmosphere of the place.

I experimented with four of the images (including this one) using an iPad app and have linked to them below.

I used a more direct non-motorway route home, and stopped off at the newish Waitrose in Malmesbury for carrot cake and coffee in the café there.

L.
9.4.2015 (1549hr)

Blip #1539 (#1789 including archived blips)
Consecutive Blip #032
Day #1828
LOTD #774 (#894 including archived blips)

A Visit To Slimbridge WWT, 26 March 2015 (Flickr album)
Painteresque Slimbridge, 26 March 2015 (Flickr album)

Lenses: Pentax 55-300 mm with 1.4 converter, Pentax 17-70 mm (Blip)

Blipmeet series
Landscape series
Slimbridge series
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust series
Zoo Trip series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
John Renbourn - Blues run the game (recorded 1965) (unreleased until 1973)
R.I.P. John Renbourn (8 August 1944, Marylebone, London – 26 March 2015, Hawick).
This is his version of Jackson C Frank's song, recorded at the sessions for his album John Renbourn but excluded from the release. I had a whole series of versions of the song as Lozarithms Of The Day, collected by blip here:
Blues Run The Game series

One Year Ago:
Signs Of Spring