Festival of swans

Water rail at ringing demonstration
Water rail at ringing demonstration

Our Festival of swans weekend is here and we were a bit worried about the fog this morning but it did encourage lots of our whooper swans to stay a bit longer on the lagoon than normal.  Tomorrow morning should be fantastic on the reserve, with thousands of birds using our wetlands at the moment.

The bird ringing sessions run by the BTO have been fantastic so far today with the highlight so far being a young water rail!  They have also caught goldcrests, goldfinches, great and blue tits amongst others. They will be back tomorrow too from 9am - 3pm with the addition of some whoosh net demonstrations at 11am & 2pm.

Whooper swan - X3G
Whooper swan - X3G

Over on the reserve we have guides in the hides pointing out the wide range of birds and locating as many ringed swans as possible.  Wimble (FZ6) was around for a long time this morning and unnamed swan X3G was present again with his mate and 4 cygnets.

Guided walk at 1pm and swan feeds at 3.30pm & 6.30pm.  We also have a volunteer leading children's swan ringing activities, learn how we catch our swans to put the leg rings onto them and make your own.  Then if you manage to spot some of our swans from the main hide you can make yourself a swan spotter badge!

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