A Cotswold Year - Charting the seasons in the South Cotswolds


Monday 2 November 2015

Bewick Swans Return

From late October the Bewick Swans begin to arrive from Siberia to spend the winter months in the milder climate of the Severn Estuary. This year the first Bewick arrived on 11th October which was the earliest ever recorded and the yearling was named accordingly as "Record Breaker" by WWT. This weekend others around twenty other swans have arrived in fact quite late.
These include Maisie BEW103 (above) one of the swans which has a tag radio transmitter so that researchers can track their flight paths. Scientists tracked Maisie as she flew from Oneg in Russia (just south of the arctic circle) to Latvia, Estonia and the Netherlands to Slimbridge.