20 March 2009

With my sister over from France and the weather looking nice, we decided to go and spend the afternoon at the Wetland Centre. It is my first visit this year, probably the first year I wait so long to go there. When we crossed Hammersmith Bridge on the bus, tide was quite low and it was immediately obvious that the black headed gulls are pretty much all gone from there as well.
We spent most of our time in the captive birds part of the reserve, in part as I wanted to see the Demoiselle Cranes which I had not seen yet since they arrived back in November (I think), and take photos of them for my parents who are cranes 'fans'. Not as exciting obviously as when a common crane flew over their house a few weeks ago as they were gardening (they're quite on the outside of their migration route through France, but occasionally one of them strays a bit from the path), but quite nice nevertheless.

It was grooming time, it seems, a constant throughout our visit. This mandarin duck in the same pen was no exception:

I was reminded reading ShySongbird's blog a few weeks ago that, when I was a youngster, I did not seem to have a roll of film without a black swan on it. I'll have to have a look one day to see if my memory is playing tricks with me, but in the meantime, here are some more:


It was grooming time for them as well...