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.

The 2 Gt Northern Divers were still present at the southern end of the reservoir this morning. Initially both together on the far side of the Res, then lost them for a while, then re-found not far north of the dam, one on one side and one north far north of the spillway.

Early p.m. managed to find 2 ad male Black Redstarts by Plas Pamir, one on a roof top and the other flew right past me having appeared from nowhere, flew round a corner and disappeared. Couldn’t re-find them despite a couple of circuits – suspect they were keeping low due to the stiff cold breeze. 3 Were reported later in the afternoon.

By the beach area, several Rock Pipit,  Redwing in the hedgerows, and a fem Black Redstart briefly on the lifeguard’s building and then on the cliff on the east side of the beach. Buzzard & Raven over.

Damp [initially] and v windy GBC trip to WWT Penclacwydd today. This odd little beastie had us scratching our heads looking thro’ the blurred glass of the Heron’s Wing hide. Managed this phone scoped pic from a viewing screen outside in a howling gale. It’s cropped, but clearly shows a Common Teal with a weird partial leucistic head. It also had pale dirty yellowish legs. From our poor views in the hide we were stringing Bufflehead/Hooded Merg! Other than that, there were 9 Greenshank, about 50 Blackwits, and other common waders, a Peregrine, 1 Sprawk, around 10 Brents seen out in the Burry, and all the common ducks – good weather for them!

Rhymney Est [Green Pt] – 1500 Redshank, 300 Dunlin, 100 Lapwing, 26 Shoveler, 3 Gadwall, 120 Pintail, 130 Shelduck, 2 Jack Snipe [first I’ve seen at Green Pt for quite some time], 1 Comm Snipe, 1 Peregrine over.

Heliport Bay – 16 Turnstone, 22 Oyc, 1 Curlew and 1 Little Egret. Just added this – forgot to mention at the Heliport I had a Clouded Yellow flying around. Seems v late …. ?

Sully Beach – around 6 Turnstone [prob more], 2 Curlew, 6 Oyc, 1 Gt Crested Grebe just offshore, 2 Rock Pipits, 1 fly-by Purple Sand [per Lol Middleton];

Cosmeston – 1 pr Wigeon, 1 drake Teal and 4 Pochard [3f 1m] on W lake. Group of 4 Little Grebes in the W lake ‘bay’ – fam group?? – didn’t see any evidence of breeding this year but you never know, and 1 Kingfisher.

Would all observers please note that there is no public access to Llanishen reservoir. There is a small authorised group who are allowed access to monitor wildfowl and carry our WeBS counts and Rob Thomas is one of that group. This access was specially negotiated with Celsa and the security people, and NRW. Any other access is not allowed and anyone doing so will be trespassing. The dog walkers get through a hole in the fence and are trespassing, and also risk disturbing the birds that do turn up there . The security people are authorised to request anyone other than those authorised, to leave immediately. Basically, it is impossible to view Llanishen Res without trespassing. Lisvane is still OK and as I understand it, you can view it from the car park. We would therefore ask that people do not attempt to get in to view Llanishen Res otherwise you will be jeopardising the limited access that has been negotiated. Obviously this is frustrating when a good bird turns up but this is the situation.

Good nos. of Redwing and Fieldfare [the latter my first of the year], flying around this morning – poss 110 & 50 respectively but too spread out to be accurate. Also Kingfisher flew across E lake from the sluice towards the boardwalk. Lol Middleton saw what was probably a Jack Snipe in flight near W lake.

A Little Egret in a tree by W lake ‘island’ and a Grey Heron, obviously intending to roost. Around 5000 Starlings gathered and swirled around for several minutes, but not a proper murmuration, and decided against dropping in and eventually headed off NE [to Cardiff Bay?]. Mad panic at one point as a male Sparrowhawk swooped into the flock [unsuccessfully].

Penarth Marina area – ad male Black Redstart seen briefly on roofs of houses that face on to Cardiff Bay at Plas St Andresse. Also 1 Tursntone, 1 Grey Wag and 1 Rock Pipit on the rocky shore there. 60 Coot in the R. Ely there.

Barrage south – 1 GBB Gull, 1 2nd cal yr Med Gull, 2 Common Gulls; mid barrage – 2 Rock Pipit, 2 Pied Wag;

Barrage north/docks – 1 Raven on a lamp post in the docks area

GBC indoor meeting – Cate Barrow – birding in Finland – 07:45 p.m.

a massive 130 Canadas on W lake this morning. 4 Green ‘Peckers seen around the W paddock area, and a Mistle Thrush, and a few Redwing at the back of W lake. A pair of winter plumage GCGs were doing the display dance by the main bridge. o/w pretty quiet.

late afternoon, around 100 Redwing flying around above west paddock, and c.500 Wood Pigeon going to roost in Cogan Wood. Also 1 Grey Heron at roost by W lake reeds.