Up far too early, especially as I was up most of the night thinking ‘up early, must get a good night’s sleep’. Got everything ready and off to Slimbridge. Got there nearly half an hour early but better early than late! A few others turned up and finally a land rover pulled up, everyone jumped in and I took a nap in the car until the centre opened and I could go in.<\/p>\n
I went to get a cup of tea and ran into the photography group having their tea! I was going to sit at a different table, but Joe said to join them. After tea we went our separate ways. Or so I thought. I headed out toward the kingfisher hide and when I get on that path, there’s Joe walking toward me! Told me there were no kingfishers, but there may be otters, so I carried on. And that was the last I saw him until the afternoon when the photography group was done!<\/p>\n
On the way to the kingfisher hide there is a dragonfly pond. No dragonflies but there was a reed warbler nest and a couple of fledlings huddling nearby. Got to see the warbler mending the nest and lining it. Also saw a reed bunting and a couple of gold finches. Then headed on to the kingfisher hide. Sat there just watching what was going on. Then scanned the opposite bank and there was a little kingfisher. Just sitting on a branch. He even did a dive, grabbed somthing, beat it against his branch, then spat it out. A twig. Got to sit and watch him for a while before he flew off.<\/p>\n
I walked over just about the entire area open and got into all the hides. Didn’t see loads of interest, but had a good time. Met up with Joe and, after dropping off our friend, we headed back to London. The traffic wasn’t too bad and we made good time back. Now to bed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Up far too early, especially as I was up most of the night thinking ‘up early, must get a good night’s sleep’. Got everything ready and off to Slimbridge. Got there nearly half an hour early but better early than late! A few others turned up and finally a land rover pulled up, everyone jumped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-6d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":374,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/12\/off-to-slimbridge\/","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":0},"title":"Off to Slimbridge","date":"Saturday, 12 June 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"So, Joe is doing a photography day at Slimbridge on Tuesday so we had to hire a car. Since we were going to have a car we decided to take the weekend and have a look around. I thought somewhere near Slimbridge to be there for Tuesday and have a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":382,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/14\/fountains\/","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":1},"title":"Fountains","date":"Monday, 14 June 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a lovely dinner and more drinks then off to bed. Up in the morning and sorted to head to Ripon and Fountain Abbey. It was still grey and cloudy but mostly dry and we had a walk around Thirsk before heading out. Saw the market set up and had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/12\/york-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":2},"title":"York","date":"Thursday, 12 August 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A leisurely\u00a0 breakfast, we then decided to stroll to the Minister. Went to the one of the sections of the city, up a temporary stair to the top of the wall and walked along the back of the Treasury House and to the Bootham Bar and down off the wall.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":548,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/05\/ice-cold-in-beer\/","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":3},"title":"Ice Cold in Beer","date":"Friday, 5 July 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So today was a walking day. Joe had done Seaton to Lyme Regis yesterday and said it wasn't as nice as you don't really get any sea views, so we decided to go the other way to Beer Point. Making jokes about being in Beer the whole time (Beer Sailing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/02\/is-snowing\/","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":4},"title":"Is Snowing","date":"Monday, 2 February 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"So no one went to work :), how ever we were woken up buy weard sounds coming from the main room. Doors being opened and so one. We snuck down stairs just in time to see small black & white shapes disaperaring out the door. with thumps and crashes of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dyslexic Discourse"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":388,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/15\/english-safari-joes-version\/","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":5},"title":"English Safari (Joe’s version)","date":"Tuesday, 15 June 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"So we got in to the land rover, and were basically told a window each. We would be driving out to areas that people are not allowed to go - not even staff. The land rover would be a mobile hide almost. 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