Gone to the birds

For a long time we'd talked about a visit to the London Wetlands Centre, a plan delayed primarily by the knowledge I'd be wanting to photograph the birds there. Having finally received my new camera last week, we ended up heading out there last Saturday. It was quite different to what I expected in some ways. There were the expected large wetlands areas, with a wide range of birdlife present. The hides were large and enabled a fairly good view of the birds, though I was somewhat surprised at how far away the birds were. The 380mm-equivalent zoom on the camera still didn't do justice to many of the birds, and a pair of binoculars or better still a birding scope would have been excellent. We later found two of these free for visitor use in the main observatory and I spent quite some time using the larger one...

The thing that surprised us most though was that they have captive birds at the Wetlands Centre too. Like the Australian Magpie Goose above, these birds have one wing pinioned to permanently prevent them from flying. All of these birds are endangered species, drawn from locations right around the world. The birds are inside a wide area with an electrified mesh perimeter fence that goes both up and under the ground, to protect them from cats and foxes. Inside however is wide open spaces, and you can get amazingly close to these fearless birds. Some of these (endangered, you'll recall) birds walk right up to you on the paths, like ducks at the local pond. Others are in enclosures behind two foot high fences, without any cages or mesh. The Centre is engaged in an active and successful breeding programme, so while it was a surprise see captive birds I'm not criticising them... Anyway, the winter migration hasn't really started yet, so in a month or so there will be a whole range of other wild species to be seen at the Wetlands. We hope to go again before the end of the year.

Bronwyn has been incredibly busy since the start of term. She needs to do school work every weeknight and spend a significant proportion of the weekend working too. It was a genuine sacrifice for her to go out for the day to the Wetlands Centre, and I appreciated it. It is the last week of the half-term now, and we're looking forward to our four-day weekend away, from Saturday to Tuesday. She'll then be spending the rest of her week “off” preparing for the next half-term. This includes preparations at the moment for both a prizegiving for the students who left at the end of the last academic year, and a Christmas concert, as well as all her usual work. It's a busy time for her. It's probably a good thing therefore that my work situation has settled somewhat, and I'm feeling much happier in my role. This is giving me the capacity to be more supportive of her heavy load. I hope she could confirm that I am putting the capacity into practical use...