I was a bit gutted when I got into Paddington, only to find that the Hammersmith & City, Circle & District lines were closed, that’ll teach me to check before I leave.

Anyway, that meant that I had a bit of a tedious journey down to Piccadilly Circus on the Bakerloo line, then onto the Piccadilly line to Hammersmith.  The bus to the Wetlands centre is the 283, and leaves regularly from the bus station, and takes you right to the front door.

The weather was great, clear skies, with just patchy clouds, but it was COLD.

The collections of captive birds in London aren’t as large as at Slimbridge, but I still had great fun trying to get a shot of a diving duck poised in mid air as it dives, unsuccessfully I might add.

There were however impressive flocks of Shoveler which were doing some kind of baitball thing that I’ve never seen before.  Lovely views of little grebes and the highlight of the day was seeing a great crested Grebe hunt and devour a small perch at close proximity near the Peacock Tower.  There were some good views of the very noisy Ring Necked Parakeets, but I finished off the day with excellent views of a snipe, thanks to the kind Canon Photographer who loaned me his 500mm lens and 2x convertor for a few minutes.

Trouble is that I now want one, but at £4k, its more than my car cost :o(

I hope to have my best images up on the website soon.