It was there that Peter Scott developed a method of recognising individual birds through their characteristics, after realising that the coloured patterns on the beaks of Bewick's swans were unique.

The Wildlife and Wetland Trust at Slimbridge was set up by Peter Scott and opened on 10 November 1946, as a centre for research and conservation.

[7] His wife Philippa, Lady Scott, sat for Jon Edgar as part of his Environmental Series of heads, and a bronze was unveiled in the visitor centre in December 2011.

The reserve includes a mixture of pastureland, much of which gets flooded in winter, lagoons, reed beds and salt marshes besides the Severn Estuary.

Many wildfowl visit the site including greater white-fronted geese, Eurasian spoonbills, pied avocets and even common cranes, the latter being birds that were originally bred here and later released on the Somerset Levels.

Bewick's swans are a feature of Slimbridge in winter, arriving from northern Russia to enjoy the milder climate of southern England.

[10] Before the establishment of the WWT reserve at Slimbridge, no Bewick's swans were regularly wintering on the Severn Estuary.

Initial releases into the wild in Hawaii were a failure however, because the nene's natural habitat was not protected from the predators that had been introduced to the islands by man.

[12] During Princess Elizabeth's 1951 tour of Canada, she was promised a Dominion gift of trumpeter swans, the arrangements to be made by Peter Scott.

[13] Canadian officials discovered the only swans tame enough to capture were at Lonesome Lake in British Columbia as they had been fed for decades by conservationist Ralph Edwards.

[13] Slimbridge has also been involved in trying to increase population levels of common cranes, which had bred spasmodically in Britain since the late 1970s.

[17] The Sloane Observation Tower gives far-reaching views to the Cotswold escarpment in the east and the River Severn and Forest of Dean in the West.

[2] Visitors are allowed to feed the captive birds with approved food mixes bought on site, and during the winter, feeding of wild birds near one of the hides takes place at certain scheduled times, including on some floodlit occasions in the evening for visiting groups.