2 Redshank on the rocky bay shoreline, only 1 Turnstone, and 1 Grey Wag. Only 1 Common Gull with all the Black-headed on the internal jetty. 1 GBB Gull on the yacht club jetties and 1 by the outer harbour. Saw one rooftop Black Redstart on the way back to the car.

230 Tufted Duck [nearly all W lake], 27 Pochard [all W lake], 2 Little Grebe, 1 Heron, and just single Redwing and Fieldfare by dragonfly pond, plus millions of people!

Happy boxing day all. I have already had some spreadsheets of 2014 records sent in. If you use the formatted spreadsheet that I send out or from the web site, please could you not leave blank rows in your list of records. I have to go through and delete them all otherwise they prevent proper sorting of the data, and also please could you make sure the species name, and your name, is entered in every row pertaining to it, again otherwise I have to go through the whole list and copy the info down the column of cells below, where it is missing, again otherwise the records can’t be sorted properly.

PS … and also the site name shd be entered every time where there’s a number of consecutive rows for a number of records.

from Twitter feed – it appears a Bittern has been seen at Cosmeston – either today or yesterday.

Hi all. With the end of the year approaching it’s timely for me to ask all observers to start thinking about making sure your observations for 2014 are up to date by the time 31st Dec arrives. It is also very important if you are a MapMate user, to make sure that you sync with your hub as soon as possible after 1st Jan, so that all records reach me by the time I do my final sync. Thanks in anticipation and have a good Christmas.

6 Black Redstarts still around the far end of Penarth Marina. I saw 2f and 1m and then met Gareth Pryce who had seen all 6 in and around Plas Pamir/Pals Taliesin/Llwyn Passat. Also 1 Redshank, 1 Turnstone and 1 Grey Wag on the rocky slope by the waters edge, and oddly, 2 Moorhens. 6 Common Gull by the orange buoys by the barrage, and 1 Rockit.

brief visit to see if my back was up to birding! Ad Yellow-legged Gull was sitting on E lake plus 1 ad Common Gull, and c.150 Tufted Ducks. Didn’t do a circuit so that’s it! Back seems OK.

highlights this morning – at least 8 Common Snipe in the snipe paddock, ad Yellow-legged Gull on E lake and Common Gull on W lake posts. Sparrowhawk over.

at Green Point today, Alan Cripps had at least 6 Jack Snipe, and excellent count for this site, and the highest I have known there. [I have databased this record].

India & Sri Lanka by Richard Smith. 7:45 p.m. KNNR Be there or be square!

No sign of the B-n Grebe from the mouth of the Taff back to the Clarence Rd bridge. At least 17 Little Grebes around the Cardiff Bay bridge and just upstream, and c. 40 Tufted Duck. 1 Grey Wag long the W side of the river, party of 10 Long-tailed Tit in trees by Clarence rd bridge and also a male Blackcap.

Don’t forget the indoor meeting tomorrow!

There’s an indoor meeting at Kenfig on Tuesday – Richard Smith is giving an illustrated talk on a trip to central India and Sri Lanka. Expect exc quality digital photos of the wildlife. 7:45 p.m.

6 Black Redstarts were seen today at Penarth marina, and at least 10 Hawfinches near Tongwynlais.

A lot of reed bed management going on:

In the cut area near St David’s Hotel, at least 10 Reed Bunting feeding together with a fem Blackcap, 3-4 Song Thrushes, Blackbirds, Wren, Dunnock, Robin & Blue Tit. The drake Lesser Scaup was showing well from the boardwalk.

There won’t be much bird news today, so just another quick heads up.

No Bird Report arrived?? Probably because you haven’t renewed your membership – we have sent a couple of reminders! Get in touch with Alan Rosney to renew.

Also most of you will notice that on the text pages that are the reverse side of the photo pages, shading in table headers or columns has come out slightly coloured rather than grey. This is obviously due to the fact that these sheets were printed in colour for the photos but it’s not clear to me how the grey came out coloured, as the text is black as it should be. This hasn’t happened before as the photo pages have been printed double sided, but the printer has done it differently this time so the photo pages face each other. Hope it’s not too irritating.

Just a quick note. The local PO postage labelled all 260 envs for me today and they will either have been collected by the postman this eve or will be first thing tomorrow.

Kingfisher W lake, sitting in tree by the reed bed, 3 Little Grebe, around 100 Tufted Duck divided equally between E and W lakes, and 2 Pochard on E lake, plus the more or less resident mass of Canadas.

Common Gull nos. building up – there were 21 on the orange buoys by the inner barrage this morning.

Not bird news I know. I am picking up the 2013 Report from the printer later this afternoon. It will then take a couple of days or so to stuff 250+ of them into envelopes and get them posted so please bear with us.

I had a call from Geri Thomas today  – a contact of his, who isn’t a birder, has found an active nest with young being fed, whilst pruning a tree! Perhaps we shd all keep a look out for birds still breeding in this, at times, still mild weather. Thanks for the heads up Geri.