The next big adventure

On Tuesday I start a six or seven week volunteering stint at Slimbridge! Slimbridge is one of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust centres; a combination of nature reserve open to wild birds, and a collection of captive waterfowl. It is a fantastic place, a world leader in waterfowl conservation and an important site for birds generally, and I am going to work there! (Unpaid. But still). I will be an Avicultural Assistant, working primarily in the Duckery where they raise the baby ducks and geese. It's full-time, but not too far from here on the train, so I will live at their volunteer hostel during the week and come home for weekends.

I am so - freaking - excited. I primarily worked with Durrell's waterfowl when I was there in 2008, and I think they might be my favourite group of birds. They seem more inclined to have personalities than a lot of the other kinds. I'm looking forward to working with red-breasted geese again, for whom I developed a great affection in Jersey.


So pretty, right?


When I arrived at Durrell there were a few groups of youngsters that had been hand-reared. While I was there they got big enough to go out in the zoo with the rest of the group, but they stayed ridiculously tame the whole time, running up honking whenever they saw a keeper with a bucket. They were one of my favourite things about the zoo, and one of my fondest memories of my time at Durrell is spending a few hours one afternoon baby-sitting them. They were being bullied by the adults of another goose family, and were still figuring out the basics of goose life: I was to try and encourage them onto the grass to eat (they hadn't realised ivy and gravel were not suitable goose food) and also onto the lake to swim, because they had never been in the water. I sat on the floor with them, and eventually they came over, sat around me, and went to sleep.


This was Limpy (my nickname). He, as you may have surmised, had a limp, and couldn't keep up with the rest of the group. His mate was very loyal and stayed with him; they could often be found in with the flamingos. He was always there when I cleaned out the flamingos in the mornings, and enjoyed being sprayed (gently) with the hose. By the end I could recognise him by his face, but at first I used the fact that he had not been pinioned: you can see his wings crossing each other, scissor-like, over his tail. All the others only had one full-length wing.



I am sure Slimbridge will be just as much fun!