What a scream(er)

We went to The London Wetland Centre (LWC) at Barnes today where we saw, amongst many other wonderful wetland birds and other animals, this screamer flexing its wings. It was with its mate, as shown in one of the extra photos, and they were enjoying the very warm and sunny afternoon.  The LWC is one of ten such sites dotted across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are run by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), a conservation charity set up at Slimbridge by Sir Peter Scott (son of "Scott of the Antarctic") in 1946. Slimbridge is the current base for the BBC's marvellous Springwatch programme, which will be on our TV  screens again very soon, I believe.  Sir Peter Scott was a remarkable, multi-talented man. In addition to setting up the WWT, he was the founding Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund , a Olympic sailing medallist and a talented artist but I would say it is his inspirational and far-sighted conservation work which is his greatest legacy. His statue at the LWT is shown in another of the extra photos.