Rhossili: chance meeting saw Chris Brewer, Alistair Flanagan and I spend an hour or two together looking across the bay. No sign of the long-tailed ducks this morning, with the best bird being a red-throated diver. Scoter flock broken up into numerous groups and mainly distant.

Mumbles Pier: 58 turnstone, 1 purple sandpiper and 9 redshank on the old pier end at high tide. Nothing on the sea.

Oxwich: no proper count but farm more ducks on the South Pond at present, including c. 60 teal this morning. Decent number of common snipe in the marsh, but no jacks seen today.

Quick walk along John Batchelor Way and Plas Taliesin: 5 Turnstone, 3 Redshank (one colour ringed as part of the Tidal Lagoon project), 3 Grey Wags and a Rock Pipit.

A great group day trip yesterday – At least 4 purple sandies on the rocks at Ogmore first thing. At Whiteford, amongst the expected species, we had snipe, jack snipe, slavonian grebe, but only one distant GND. Whilst looking at the GND an auk sp. was briefly in view. At Llanrhidian Marsh – Great whites, hen harriers, an unexpected marsh harrier, and merlin. 88 species for the day. RW, DJJ, GJJ et al.

In sunny but cold conditions there were 15 participants on today’s GBC monthly walk at Kenfig NNR. In total, forty nine species were seen or heard. The highlights included a male Marsh Harrier which appeared late morning and which gave excellent views from the South Pool hide, Scaup, Goldeneye, Lapwing, Sparrowhawk and Greylag Geese. Many thanks to Strinda Davies for leading the walk.

Full species list: Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Goldeneye, Scaup, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Shoveler, Pochard, Gadwall, Wigeon, Teal, Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Marsh Harrier, Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Moorhen, Coot, Lapwing, Snipe, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Magpie, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Long-tailed Tit, Goldcrest, Wren, Starling, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Redwing, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Dunnock, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Linnet, Reed Bunting.

Anyone wishing to view a Kingfisher at close quarters should visit Clydach. This one is quite happy to sit while you snap. I had the pleasure of taking an 82 year old lady to see it. She had never seen a Kingfisher before in her life. Needless to say she was delighted as the bird fished up to about 10 feet away.

Sorry about this – just a heads up. I noticed when I posted my pix just now that the image storage allowance that we have, is 34% used so the GBC admin [usually me!] will have to keep an eye on it and at some point in the future it will be necessary to remove batches of photos from very old posts. We will always keep the prev years active in case of queries re unusual or rare species that are photographed and posted.

The Long-tailed Duck was showing well by the inner barrage this morning, following a pair of Mallard to and fro from the sails to the Penarth end, mostly v close in, except when a couple’s children thought it would be fun to throw stones at them! Had my dog with me which made taking pix a little difficult as she wanted to play with all the other passing hounds! Didn’t affect the LTD tho’. Water was dead calm so it was easy to follow the LTD under water. Tried a few under the water shots!.

Came upon the Black Redstart in Pen Marina on way back to car, flitting around on the roofs at the barrage end of Plas Taliesin.

Posted for Will Wadsworth-Davies

Flock ca 30 Waxwings from first light still at The Range, Winchwen, feeding on good berry trees. Lots of observers.

A late visit produced the usual suspects but no yellow legged gull. 3 fallow deer were a surprise.

 

30+ birds still present at right-hand side of Range store Winchwen at 16.30. Cracking views of birds in stand of tall trees. Very accessible.

a.m. 2 Mistle Thrush and a single Fieldfare feeding in W paddock, and a Green ‘Pecker also. 4 Bullfinch [2 pairs] in trees by the Med Village concrete path, and 1 Treecreeper near the central path by the ‘T’ junction.

30+ Waxwings at The Range (Old Winchwen store) and adjoining side road. Flew off 0930ish but likely  to return for very good berry trees. Several observers.

4 Wigeon this morning (1m 3f) per Mathew Meehan.

My phone scoped effort from this morning. Also the 2 Siberian chiffchaff still present with 2 common chiffchaff.

A Purple Sandpiper was with a flock of Turnstone on the rocks off Lock’s Common at high tide this morning (record shot). Nearby the Gull roost on rocks off West Park Drive to the south of Lock’s Common, there were 275 Black-headed Gull, 2 Common Gull and 5 Mediterranean Gull (4 adult winter / 1 second winter).

Long-tailed Duck with the 8 Scaup today from the barrage and in flight.

Despite the murk and gloom this morning the Bittern left the island reed bed at 07:50 and landed high up in the reeds across the bay facing the boardwalk about 130m away. It stayed there until 08:45 when it finally climbed down the reeds and crept away. Light was terrible but scope views were actually okay once the cloud lifted a bit.

Poor record shot of the bird sitting in the reeds. ISO 3200, 130m and really poor light don’t make for great photos – nor the fact the bird is extremely well camouflaged!

Evening update:
At 16:55 the bird came out of the reed island, did a circuit of the the reserve then landed back in the reeds. I had been down there since 16:00, I’d like to think I didn’t miss it going in but crossing the channel takes seconds so it’s easily missed. Some even grainier flight shots below.

Late afternoon dog walk. There were 57 Pochard on W lake, again nearly all drakes. 50 Redwing and a single Fieldfare in W paddock which suddenly flew up when a smart male Sparrowhawk had a go and nearly got one after doing a spectacular stall-turn.

Bittern flew from roost at 07.57 to main reserve.

Footage from the hidden bird table from yesterday.