Hello,

Sorry for the non-sighting post, but I thought that some people may be interested in attending this year’s Unknown Wales Conference, held in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. Stephen Roberts will be presenting a talk about Honey Buzzards.

The date this year is Saturday 28th October.

It should be a very interesting day- along side Stephen’s talks, there are talks about marine life, rivers, seagrass meadows, natterjack toads and polychaete worms. More details, the programme and booking form are online here https://www.welshwildlife.org/unknown-wales/conferences/unknown-wales-2017/

All the best,

Rose

UnknownWales 2017 flyerCYUnknownWales 2017 flyerEN

She was on the Northern Wetlands on Monday and is apparently now on the canal

Has anyone got any ideas what these feathers may be from? They were dropped in to us at the Wildlife Trust. The carcass of a large bird of prey was found in the Vale of Glamorgan and these are some of the feathers from it. Apparently it had been significantly predated and there was no head and not much body left, but the talons were and were reportedly as thick as a man’s finger. Closest we can find it red-tailed hawk but these feathers are bigger as you can see from the photograph!

Good list of species from this mornings Winter Bird Walk at Parc Slip including wood pigeon, robin, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, long tailed tit, magpie, raven, teal, mallard, moorhen, green woodpecker, chaffinch, wren, songthrush, blackbird, jay, goldfinch, dunnock, greenfinch and a cetti’s warbler heard in the reeds at the wader scrape.

 

Water rail showing well on the Visitor Centre pond yesterday lunchtime at Parc Slip. And a good start to the day today- first thing I saw as I arrived at work was a red kite flying over the centre.