As soon as I got out of the car I noticed the bees on the wild flowers in the beds approaching the entrance:
Once we were past the entrance desk we headed for the hide nearest the World Wetlands area. I was relieved to find that i could access it easily with my frame and that there were very comfortable chairs to sit in at the viewing windows. Fortunately we had brought a couple of pairs of binoculars with us, as there was only one pair in the hide.
We spotted:
Canada Geese
Coots
Pochard ducks
Black-headed Gulls
Mute Swans
Mallards - both Ducks and Drakes, all the Drakes were in their eclipse plumage
Tufted Duck and her duckling
June and December were rather anxious about the Tufted Duck duckling as there were lots of Black-headed Gulls nearby, as we had heard about ducklings being taken by Gulls from a post during the 30 Days Wild in June Challenge. Fortunately, the duckling wasn't nabbed whilst we were there and when we researched it more later we discovered that the culprit had been a Herring Gull and that Black-headed Gulls eat fish, carrion and insects (amongst other things) but NOT ducklings!
As we left the centre over the footbridge June called out that she could see something under the leaves of the water lilies. It turned out to be a very content Water Vole having an early evening snack - much to our surprise and delight it seemed to be completely unaware of us and so I was able to take several photos:
Later that evening (about 10pm), as I was watering the plants, I heard a rather desperate sounding squeak coming from further down the garden and as I turned my torch in the direction of the sound I saw the telltale glints of light reflecting from the eyes of a couple of cats and decided that I had better investigate. They didn't want to shift as I approached so I had to vigorously shoo them away (the only thing injured in this process was their pride at losing their prey). Once I was sure that they had scarpered I looked around and discovered a mole quivering in the flower bed, surrounded by juicy slugs. Eventually December and Daddy managed to coax him into the bushes and we all very much hope that he made it to safety.
