Setting up Home

For my final day in the Cotswolds I took a detour on my way home via WWT Slimbridge.  I had wanted to visit for some time, and although it was more commercialised than other sites I was not disappointed.

After the obligatory coffee break I took a guided tour round the Scott Museum, the house built by Sir Peter Scott (son of the famous Antarctic explorer Robert Scott) in the 1950s with his second wife and family.  He established the Wildlife & Wetlands Trust here in 1946, as well as helping found the World Wide Fund for Nature. Among many other accomplishments he was an Artist and won a bronze in sailing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics … a talented man! By todays standards this is a very modest house, yet they played host to the likes of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip and  Sir David Attenborough.


it was then time for a walk round the reserve with its collection of rare wildfowl augmented by migratory and resident birds living on the River Seven estuary.  

The highlight of the visit just had to be sightings of a pair of kingfishers nesting in a bank opposite the well named Kingfisher Hide. Even with my long lens plus extender I still had to crop heavily to get these shots, and the light was poor, but I was pleased to catch the female as she left her burrow. The extra is her partner who I just caught flying away from his perch.

It was a good day, and a good end to my long weekend (despite the cancelled photo workshop).