The Two Great Northern Divers are still there.They are not together so sometimes hard to find.

I did a pretty productive Rhymney WeBS count this morning, conducted at Green Point. A veritable murmuration of Redshank and Dunlin, c.1000 and c.1500 respectively, 40 Lapwing, 32 Wigeon, 80 Pintail, 60 Teal, 86 Shelduck, 40 Mallard, just 1 Curlew, 2 Cormorant, plus 9 Pied Wags and 3 Meadow Pipits. The waders were very restless, settling then flying around en masse, and frequently the Redshank would settle on the water and swim around in a tight group. No pix as I didn’t take the camera. For those that don’t know, Green Point is the area by the rivermouth, on the opposite side of Rover Way to the Tesco superstore. Be v careful crossing Rover Way at the lights – it’s not a pedestrian crossing.

Avoided the mud of Cosmeston late morning and walked across the barrage instead. Just 3 Pied Wags on the barrage and the usual bunch of Sparrows, although there were 50 Cormorant resting on the inner ‘jetty’. At Porth Teigr just the male Black Redstart was on the favoured pile of rocks and wouldn’t come closer to the fence. On the way back a Kestrel was hovering across from the Swift tower and there were 5 Redshank on the mud outside the barrage.

24-Little Egrets flew from the island roost today at first light.

3x greenfinches seen in gardens on 10min walk back from town centre. Seems a bit of a rarity these days. Just as I was wondering where all the chaffinches had gone I found 5 at another garden feeder.

Decent views of 31 Snipe at the northern end of Llwyn-Onn reservoir this afternoon. Also there 1 Jay, 2 Little Grebe, 8 Mallard, 8 Cormorant and a few Crossbill. A Dipper was below the dam.

A large feeding party of Long-tailed Tits were by the lower end of Mile Road, with a Goldcrest in tow. Managed a miraculous couple of shots of a LTT despite having to hold the camera one-handed at full zoom, with the pup on the lead in the other hand! Whilst I was by the dipping pond, a Sparrowhawk made a couple of rapid passes. The Casualty filming is still going on at the far end of West Lake, despite its supposed status as a ‘conservation lake’. I hate to think what a quagmire the grassy bank there will be when they’ve finished. Anyway despite that there were 7 Gadwall in the middle of W lake, an increase on the 2 pairs of recent days – maybe the extra three have been pushed out of the reeds by the disturbance of the filming, which has involved the roof of a car in the water, and attendant frogmen, and a jetty being installed by ther waters edge to support equipment. The tree shot was just ‘cos it was nice to see them illuminated by the strange bright round object in the sky.! FInally there was ratty feeding on some spilt bird food seed.

An early morning visit to Flemingston to do the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) count before the rain got serious.

Waterbirds present were 7 Lapwing, 7 Wigeon, 48 Mallard, 1 Water Rail, 2 Moorhen, 4 Grey Heron, 6 Little Egret, 22 Greylag Geese, 199 Canada Geese, 11 Cormorant and 13 Mute Swan. Gulls present were 102 Herring gull, 1 Lesser Black-backed, 1 Great Black-backed Gull, 60 Common Gull and 60 Black-headed Gull.

In all we saw or heard 43 species, and others present included 2 Stock Dove, 70 Fieldfare, 30 Redwing, 2 Mistle Thrush, a singing Song Thrush, 2 Stonechat, 2 Raven, Green and Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Kestrel.

Pretty quiet this morning – filming for ‘Casualty’ by the far end of W lake didn’t help. However sitting in the cafe having coffee with my ‘last of the summer wine’ pals, I was fortunately facing the windows and a female Goosander flew in and settled on E lake for a short while then few off and headed towards W lake and poss beyond.

At Cosmeston on 5th Dec, my first Treecreeper for a while, in the wooded area on the right, 50m beyond the main bridge.
On 9th Dec a circuit of the lake at Parc Tredelerch just gave 45 Tufted Duck and some Coot and a pair of Mute Swans.
Today, 10th Dec, at Cosmeston, east lake had 122 Tufted Duck in amongst which were 2 female type Scaup, and there were a further 45 Tufted on W lake. Also a fem Pintail was reported. I also logged 2 Little and 2 Great Crested Grebes. There were c.30 Redwing feeding around the conservation area and a small flock of Goldfnch were there too.

On a short visit yesterday morning (8 December):

Watermill – 1 Redshank, 38 Teal, 3 Grey Heron, 1 Cormorant, 1 Little Egret, 31 Mallard

Ogmore Moor – 20 Curlew (field adjacent Ogmore Castle), 170+ Canada Geese, 1 Sparrowhawk, 6 Teal, 23 Mallard

Ploran Mawr/Waterworks bridge area – 10 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret, 1 Redshank, 12 Teal

River below Portobello – 7 Gadwall, 14 Wigeon, 15 Goldeneye, 1 Redshank, 4 Great Black-backed Gull, 4 Goosander, 1 Turnstone

From RSPB Ham Wall – 01 Dec 2023

This morning, a Snipe flew out of the snipe enclosure and there were a good number of Redwing feeding in the bushes and flying back & forth across W. paddock. There were 2 pairs of Gadwall on W lake and 35 Tufties.
On Monday [4th] there was a pair of Pintail on W lake plus 2 female type Scaup with the Tufties, and a Common Gull, the first one I’ve seen in the park this winter.

There’s still extensive flooding on the moor and birds present late morning on Tuesday 5 December included 63 Lapwing, 42 Wigeon, 7 Shoveler, 21 Greylag Geese, 7 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron, 13 Mute Swan, 43 Mallard, 150 Black-headed Gull, 180+ Canada Geese and 10 Fieldfare.

8 folk braved the rain and mist on our our second ‘Walks For Women’, and were rewarded by seeing 36 species – not bad for such a dismal day! Thanks for coming along, and special thanks to John Wilson for the route map and birding suggestions and Mary Gallagher for being deputy leader and keeping the list!

The highlights were – lots of Goldcrest in different areas, showing well, a Kingfisher, several Redwing , a Jay, 3 Greenfinch, a Kestrel, and several species of woodland bird very close up on the dragon tree.

Full List

Canada Goose, Mute Swan , Gadwall , Mallard , Pochard, Tufted Duck, Woodpigeon, Moorhen , Coot , Little Grebe
Great Crested Grebe, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull , Cormorant , Buzzard , Kingfisher, Kestrel , Jay , Magpie
Jackdaw , Carrion Crow , Blue Tit , Great Tit , Cetti’s Warbler, Long-tailed Tit , Goldcrest , Nuthatch , Starling,
Song Thrush , Redwing, Blackbird , Dunnock , Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch

V v cold and pretty misty this morning. Main highlight was a Little Egret just about discernible in a tree by W lake. There were 38 Tufties on the water but I was unable to find the Pochards or Gadwalls from the other day. There were plenty of Redwing & Fieldfare flying about but none settling anywhere decent for photos apart from one Redwing by the lower dovecote field. I walked through Cogan Wood but had no luck with Marsh Tit, just the usual Great, Blue & Coal Tits and Nuthatch. Other common birds were Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Long-tailed Tit, Goldcrest and a couple of Bullfinch, plus I managed a couple of shots of Blackbird and Mistle Thrush.

Caerphilly Castle Moat

This morning 1st December 2023 Goosander 4 Teal 1 Grey Heron 1

Goosander 4 Teal 1 drake

Though arriving at wrong place for Portbury wharf NR on Sunday which gave a very long 40 min walk loop left to the hide, i manage the Black-neck Grebe, the Grebe did spend most of the time diving or hiding behide a bank. Even better i was able to get back to car just before the rain open up on the grey/black afternoon skies, so win, win

From Poole Harbour – Winter Boat Safari –