Close encounters of the twitchers kind!

This morning we went to Slimbridge as planned to test the new lens.  We hoped to see some dragonflies or perhaps some small birds of the feeders had been filled up.

It was a glorious start to the morning and the lady who booked us in told us there was a Spotted Crake at the Van de Bovencamp Hide, which was a rare bird.

Anyway, we set off on our usual route to the Kingfisher Hide (the dragonfly ponds are on the way) - Slimbridge WWT Map.  The first pond was empty so we moved on to the second only to see the path ahead blocked by twitchers!  As we approached I was instructed to move away from the pond - not by a WWT member of staff but a self appointed warden!  I explained that I was here to look at dragonflies, to which I was told I was in their way as they wanted to look at the bird!  Sorry, I said I pay the same as you to be here, so I will do as I plan.  The bird will never come out if you stand there he said!  Oh yes he did!  And my silent shutter did a good job of hiding the fact I got a closer shot than them and they didn't know it!  There were about a dozen blokes there and several more decided to have a go, so I said you can keep going, but the longer you do the longer I'll stay!  I won't be intimidated by you!  Anyway, we waited a while but no dragonflies landed close up so we moved on, although they would barely move the tripods from the path!  Of course we then had to fight back through the melee on the return and they wouldn't move enough for us to keep to the path!  We did speak to the supervisor on the way out and she agreed they should not block the path or behave like that.  But explained that some of the twitchers who come here are absolute fanatics and will hog a single window in a hide the whole day and not let anyone look even more a minute despite the fact they already have plenty of good pictures!  She thought it was amusing I had a picture and said she'd have told them so!  Mr T did as he had to fight past on the way back!

No idea where this stubbornness comes from (father!!!!) but I was not being told what to do by a jumped up twitcher who couldn't even say please!  

After that we enjoyed a coffee in the sunshine at the Canoe Kiosk and strolled back.