First family of Bewick's arrive at Slimbridge
The first family of Bewick’s swans landed at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust’s Slimbridge Wetland Centre today having travelled thousands of miles from their summer breeding haunts in the Arctic Circle.
Parents Conrad and Connie flew into the reserve at around 8.50am this morning with two new strapping youngsters and a yearling. These new arrivals bring the total number of swans to arrive this season so far to 13.
Conrad and Connie first came to Slimbridge in 2002 and have only missed one season in 2003. The pair has also arrived with cygnets before; one in 2004 and another in 2006.
WWT’s head of UK waterbird conservation Eileen Rees said: “We always welcome back swans that return to Slimbridge each year because they become old friends, but it is particularly encouraging when we see the arrival of new cygnets. Initial research from the Russian artic this summer indicated that it had been a poor breeding season and typically early arrivals in the wintering range tend not to have youngsters. So this is very promising and hopefully means that conditions during the second part of the breeding season were better than in the first, enabling swans that succeeded in hatching cygnets to raise their young.”
November to February is the best time to see the swans at the nature reserve with the highest numbers of around 300 around mid January. Visitors can join free daily commentated swan feeds at 4pm from the comfort of the centre’s Peng Observatory, or come after normal opening hours for a special floodlit swan feed at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays (£5 adults, £3 children).
During these feeds, experts introduce visitors to the swans, many of whom have been wintering at the site since they were cygnets. All of the adult and yearling swans wintering at Slimbridge can be individually identified by the unique pattern of yellow and black on their bill.
