Pretty quiet on the small bird front this morning. This Song Thrush sat just above me on Sunday.
Today there were c. 120 Tufties, 2 drake Pochard and 50 Canada Geese.

10 hardy souls braved the bitter NE wind for a walk around Cosmeston this morning. We were off to a good start with 2 male Siskin in with a flock of Goldfinch feeding on Alder near the cafe and a Gt Spotted Woodpecker in a nearby tree,There was no sign of yesterday’s Wigeons but the drake Pochard was still present on W lake. A Fieldfare was resting in a tree there. A total of 5 Little Grebes were noted. We then spent a fair time among trees near the play park looking for a Yellow-rowed Warbler that had been seen for the prev 2 days. It was neck breaking stuff with those very tall trees! We had more or less gven up due to the wind when yours truly spotted a feeding flock and had a v brief view of the target bird but after ages craning our necks to try & follow this mobile flock, no-one else could get on to it sadly. There were Long-tailed Tits, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Goldcrest, Treecreeper and Chiffchaff in the flock. Cogan Wood produced the usual tits & Nuthatch and along the Sully Brook field there were many Redwing. The Cormorant shown is part way through swallowing an Eel! 43 species were seen!
Click here for the full list.

Cosmeston late a.m. 3 Teal and 1 drake Pochard were on W lake with the Tufties. 1 each of Buzzard, Kes and Sprawk were over W paddock, 1 Redwing feeding on hawthorn there, plus Misgtle Thrush, and 3 Fieldfare fly-overs, quite high.

A Yellow-browed Warbler was reported early afternoon in sycamores between the Mile Road and the playground

This hybrid Tufty type was on W lake Cosmeston this morning. V distant so big crops. There was also a single drake Pochard and an ad Heron. No sign of the Firecrest that was seen yesterday morning by the main boardwalk. Also couple of Mipits in E paddock. All rubbish photos!

At Aust Salt Marsh

Got down to the barrage for first time in a while and eventually found the Red-throated Diver that was found a coupe of days ago. It was quite distant towards the Cardiff end off the dock area by the gas storage tanks. After coffee by Porth Teigr it fortunately came a little closer on the walk back and I Iucked in on some wing stretch shots. There was also a very confiding female Pied Wag on a wall by the sluices.

New arrivals in the rain this morning were 2 m and 1 f Pochard on W lake in amongst the Tufties. A Jay was by the dipping pond, carrying an acorn.

I found the people at club to very friend suggesting if club open pop and say hello and buy a coffee, if quiet you welcome to park but if practise or game that fair enough as bird on the pitch

In the light drizzle and v poor light at Cosmeston this morning. I was walking across W paddock when a Kes came and alighted in the hedge, but only briefly as a second Kes flew in a flushed it off. The camera wasn’t ready but they flew up fairly high then had a kind of dog fight. I think they were both young birds and there was no real aggression. Nice to watch tho’. One pic below shows how distant they were when I took the pix, hence they are pretty fuzzy.
The Woodpigeon is I understand, one that has been around for a couple of years, although I’ve never seen it before. As the pic shows, it has a pretty bad deformity of one of the bill mandibles, but it’s obviously coping OK as it was pretty plump.

18/10/25 Monthly Public Birdwalk

Welc0me to 13 folk on the Kenfig walk on Saturday morning, good to see new faces and old friends.

We were pleased to see or hear 44 species between us, on a long walk – for me anyway!- of at least 5 1/2 miles! A visit to the hide gave us great views of c300 Canada Geese and Greylag arriving and a Sparrowhawk upsetting all the Gulls. We then visited Colin And Wayne ringing birds – they were packing up because it had become too breezy, but were happy to report that they’d ringed their 2000th bird- before crossing the dunes to the windy coast. Dave Carrington found a Brambling with a flock of Siskin, too far for most to spot. At Sker Point c300 Golden Plover were displaying for us , a Wheatear was seen by most folk.

Many thanks to Dave Carrington for leading, and other folk for sharing knowledge and scopes.

Full LIst.

300+ Canada Goose , Greylag Goose , Mute Swan , Gadwall , Wigeon , Mallard , Tufted Duck , Woodpigeon , Collared Dove , Coot , Great Crested Grebe, Oystercatcher , 300+ Golden Plover , Ringed Plover , Turnstone , Sanderling, Black-headed Gull , Common Gull , Herring Gull , Lesser Black-backed Gull , Cormorant , Sparrowhawk , Kestrel , Magpie
Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit , Skylark, Cettis Warbler , Chiffchaff , Wren, Blackbird , Robin , Stonechat, Wheatear, Dunnock ,Pied Wagtail , Meadow Pipit , Brambling , Bullfinch , Linnet , Siskin .

Kestrel was long distance and hovoring , so snap a serial of Pictures, to say the suprise, what i see was understatement

Just a few from the last few days. The Jay was burying acorns on the slope by the dipping pond at Cosmeston on Thursday. The Linnets on Hawthorn were part of a flock of about 40 at Lavernock this morning, where I also counted at least 20 Skylark over the large field. I wasn’t early enough for much active vis-mig but I did note a small group of Crossbill and a single calling Yellow Wagtail flying over. A high group of vocal crows drew my attention, whereupon I discovered they were mobbing a high circling Short-eared Owl, which was a nice surprise. The photos are MEGA crops – it was v high. It continued west until lost from sight. The African Grey parrot!!! was perched on the railings by Chew Valley Lake yesterday eve [long story as to why I was there]. Its owner appeared to be the inhabitant of a tatty campervan. Lastly I was dead chuffed to get a few nice portraits of a Wren whilst I was sitting outside the back of the Cosmeston cafe this morning.

The Club ran a great trip to the Portland Bird Observatory in Dorset over the weekend – an annual event. 10 club members stayed in the lighthouse. Some special birds were seen, including a first for GBC – a White-tailed Eagle. We were very lucky to see a Wryneck in a local quarry, accompanying the resident Little Owl. Also of note were huge numbers of Razorbills passing the tip of Portland Bill over a couple of hours. Thanks to Cindy Howells for the photo. We logged an impressive 101 bird species over the weekend.
This brief summary by Alan Rosney but posted by John W with a couple of additional comments.

Nothing exciting around, and i got caught in the unexpected heavy drizzle!. Had a Great Tit feeding from my hand by the Medieval Village. A Heron was sitting rather dejectedly in the drizzle in the favoured tree near the main bridge. A dog exploring the trees there flushed it and it flew & landed on a tree on the conservation ‘island’. It was an adult with some impressive plumes. What I assume was a pair of Little Grebes were together on E lake near the shore.

No Shorties but female Kestrel

A surprise this morning was a Hobby which flew over our heads from the direction of the golf club and alighted in a tree by E lake – unfortunately with its back to me – see photo. It was only there for about 30 secs when it was chased off by a Crow and was lost to view over the trees by the playpark. I saw it again above W lake being harassed by Jackdaws , then again hunting v high over E paddock which I took some flight pix of, but it was just a dot, so the pic below is a HUGE crop. Nice to see tho’. Nothing much else to report apart from a few Common Darter and Migrant Hawkers still about.

I decided to do the Glamorgan Bird Club Big Bird Count today and logged 28 species. My route went via the dipping pond, then up the Mile Road between the lakes, into West Paddock, then round through Cogan Wood, out into the westerly field and up by the plantation above Sully Brook, along the top of the so-called upper Dovecote field and back down to the Mile Road and back past the Medieval Village. My full list is here. Nothing of real note although Jay and Green Woodpecker were best of the bunch. Noticeable absentees were Coal TIt and Nuthatch in Cogan Wood [and Marsh Tit I guess], despite my taking some seed.

Did a very slow shortish walk round W lake Cosmeston this morning – my 1st outing recovering from a v nasty cold & cough. The Kestrel was hovering over W paddock, so the photos are biggish crops. Also of interest, plenty of Ivy Bees around at the moment and finally a nice pristine Speckled Wood.

I’m a bit tardy posting this as I’ve had a stinking cold since getting home on Sunday. Anyway, we had a great club field trip on Sunday 28th, when 21 Club members enjoyed a full day visiting Pembrey Old Dock by Burry Port, Kidwelly Quay, WWT Llanelli and for some stalwarts, the R. Loughor foreshore [an attempt to ‘twitch’ a Lesser Yellowlegs … unsuccessfully]. We logged 64 species of which the waders were the stars, with the top of the bill being the Grey Phalarope at Kidwelly. Those that had seen Grey Phal before had mostly never seen one other than swimming around in circles as they usually do but this one behaved like a ‘proper’ wader and spent some time waddling around on the mud. The waders total was an impressive 15 species the other notable ones being Spotted Redshank, Curlew Sandpiper, Ruff and Greenshank. Click here for the full list. There’s a full trip report here: https://glamorganbirds.org.uk/category/trip-reports/

From GBC walk on sunday at Kidwelly Quay