Lesser Whitethroat singing west of Penarth Road River Bridge, Cetti’s Warbler singing at two locations, Canada Goose – 2 on river, Great Crested Grebe 1. Sanatorium Fields, 1 Common Whitethroat.
Lesser Whitethroat singing west of Penarth Road River Bridge, Cetti’s Warbler singing at two locations, Canada Goose – 2 on river, Great Crested Grebe 1. Sanatorium Fields, 1 Common Whitethroat.
Glamorgan Bird Club 
Nice you got a whitethroat on Sanatorium Rd fields, @essef53, which form the last section of one of my BBS squares. So little is left, and it’s going to get worse, I hadn’t expected to see a whitethroat there again. The piece of scrub that always contained one (or more) in season has gone. I suppose this was close to the river?
Hello Paul, It wasn’t that near the river but in the scrub alongside the playing field. Indeed the numbers of everything have fallen there–during the 1990’s there were regularly 8 PAIRS of Whitethroat actually holding territory there and 8 males up until 2002. Since then apart from 5 singing males during May-June in 2006 I have been lucky to have 2 singing males holding territory up until 2010. The area of course has lost its “wildness” although of course the Ely Paper Mill was pretty useless for birds (!) maybe with an estate and some gardens it will attract more! The species I note that have been of notable loss are Linnet, Lesser Whitethroat (as a migrant) and Green Woodpecker. Your BBS square is much better than mine which this year had two sections having no birds at all! But that’s the area of the Leckwith Retail Park which once was a wonderful site for birding.
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Thanks for the reply – could you detail where the whitethroat was with a map ref perhaps? Interested to check if still there when I am there for second BBS visit. ST1576 is not very interesting – huge numbers of Jackdaws, gulls and FP (sometimes over 150 for one or more of these species), but not much else now. The sections where the welsh school now stands were my favourite bit, plus the river bank where I stop. [Technically, I should drive round to Trelai allotments on the other side of the river for section 10 but I never did that as it would be 45 minutes later by time I walked back to car etc]. I wonder if Blackcap will be there this year, wasn’t on my first visit.
I have sections on my upland BBS squares which sometimes have zero birds as well, and on many of those upland sections, fewer than 5 birds is the norm.
Hello Paul, Map reference is ST 156759 (6 figure) or ST 15638 75918. Bird wasn’t there today but I am there every day and will keep an ear open.
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Now I understand where you are, that’s about 500m SE of my southern transect which used to go through the scrubby area S of Sanatorium Rd and into the playing fields (The ones to North-West of new school not yours) and along the tree line to the river.