Kidwelly Quay, Pembrey Harbour, Sandy Water Park & WWT Llanelli

Thirteen Club members met up at at Kidwelly Quay at 9 a.m. in dismal fine drizzle and a stiff breeze – ideal conditions for creating wet optics! The high was extremely high already despite there’re being another hour to go. Hence there was a dearth of waders, but we did spot a Common Sandpiper by the railway bridge, some distant Oycs in the murk and on the usual circular walk, a few Whimbrel and Curlew. Two pairs of Red-breasted Merganser were distant in the water. On the walk a constantly singing Sedge Warbler refused to show, but Chiffies and Willow Warblers were more obliging. Scoping the fields to the east eventually gave us poor views of a small group of Pink-footed Geese, which was a bonus. By the water treatment works Goldcrests and a small number of Long-tailed Tits were active, and there were large numbers of hirundines hawking insects, mostly Swallows and Sand Martins, with a few House Martins. The former two were hitching roundabout rides on the slowly rotating filter bed sprinklers.

We then moved east to explore the old jetty at so-called Pembrey Harbour, just west of Burry Port harbour itself. The sandbar offshore just had a tight group of around 1000 Oystercatchers, but on the tidal saltmarsh there were 3 Ringed Plover and a Dunlin, plus a few pipits which caused a lot of discussion. They were Rock Pipits but didn’t have the classic dusky Rock Pipit look about them Many photos were taken and we were speculating as to whether at least one or two were of the Scandinavian ‘littoralis’ race. David Rich had ‘scoped a few Common Gulls in his Questar reflector ‘scope but the rest of us missed those. A male Wheatear posed on the jetty wall.

Next up was a visit to Sandy Water Park near Llanelli to see the adult Little Gull. Sadly the Bonaparte’s Gull which had been there for sometime, was not present. The Little Gull performed well in the usual constant active dipping flight characteristic of the species.

Having had our fill of that, we dropped in to the WWT Llanelli Wetland Centre where a Spoonbill, a Long-tailed Duck and a Russian White-fronted Goose had been reported. Those still with us [some had left previously] headed straight down to the British Steel hide to see what we could see. On the walk down I had a fly-over Peregrine. Two Greenshank were resting in the scrape area and by the pool from the rear there were many Black-tailed Godwits and Redshank, and eventually 5 Ruff were found by David Rich. The visibility was very poor at any distance but during some concentrated scoping of the saltmarsh I finally found the Whitefront, in with some Greylags. We dipped on the Spoonbill and Long-tailed Duck, but rewarded ourselves with a nice coffee back at the cafe, to end a successful day despite the damp start. A total of 66 species had been recorded.