A – White Spotted Bluethroat

35 speice seen, 3 Airborne Birds of Prey – Red Kite – Buzzard and Kestrel with snake – 58 Canada Geese & 6 Juvs and a Black Tailed Godwit around the pond

Small red-eyed Damselfly also Common Blue Damselfly + Emperor 4 Broad-bodied Chaser 6, Mute Swan 88 Great Crested Grebe 1

Wednesday am. Redstart 1 juv Tree Pipit 2 Jay 3 Curlew heard

Dragonflies: Emperor 2BroadBodied Chaser 6 Four Spot Chaser 4 Golden Ringed Dragonfly 3 Large Red Damselfly 1 Azure Blue Damselfly 10 Beautiful Demoiselle 1

I visit RSPB Ynys-hir, walking to Salting hide look out on river mouth, when this rapter made airborne pass, just say i never been so dispointing with Peregrine, for a second i hope a Osprey. Ynys-hir is a lovely reserve, i manage Saltmarsh trail, Wetland trail and bit of the hard up and down woodland walk, Redstarts, Pied Flycatchers, saw spotted flycatchers, everywhere Canada Geese with all size of Goslins and some mad horses – Than dash up the boardwalk at Dyfi Osprey Project, well bit of lie, after 5&i/2 walk and sitting in hides around Ynys-hir my walk to hide was a hobble and got this years Osprey tick – My Airborne competition between buzzard and Red Kites tried at 6 each on both leg of the drive.

On a sunny day 12 members enjoyed a walk around the beautiful Dinas RSPB reserve, north of Llandovery. We logged 38 species including all the ‘targets’ of Pied & Spotted Flycatchers, Common Redstart, and Wood Warbler, with Garden Warbler, Marsh Tit and other common woodland species thrown in for good measure. Adult Wheatears were feeding juvs by the access road to Llyn Brianne reservoir. By the afternoon it was getting pretty warm and folk were wilting, and the leader succumbed to an ice cream cone and then an ice lolly after watching the Wheatears! A few record shots by yours truly below. Thanks to all for coming. John Wilson. Click here for the full list.

A pair of Blue tits having successfully raised a brood and all have fledged from a nest in an outside cigarette butt bin. Swallows have again nested in the garage/workshop ( this time on a ledge of plywood I screwed to a crossbeam ), another pair are investigating the ladies toilet through an open window and a pair of pied wagtails have a clutch inside the gubbins of a contractors dumper truck! ( a sign is up to stop it being used). Also House sparrows are nesting all over the place, at least 20 pairs.

Spotted Flycatcher

One of several fledgling Great Tits from the nestbox in my garden. Amazing to watch the parents working non-stop all day.

Today was pretty quiet but I noted a Green Woodpecker near the dragonfly pond and a Great Spotted Woodpecker calling by the Mile Road next to W. paddock but not seen. A Chiffchaff was feeding in a tree there and a WIllow Warbler has been singing from a tall bare tree near the snipe enclosure for several days. One Great Crested Grebe pair has a single well grown ‘humbug’ [usually on E lake] and this morning I saw that the other pair have at least 2 small chicks, still being carried on the adult’s back [1 visible in the pic below]. There’s a Moorhen with 3-4 young on the dragonfly pond. Yesterday a Stock Dove was in W paddock then flew obver to feed just beyond the dragonfly pond. Was pleased to see and whole lot of Honey Bees nectaring on the mass of Alexanders near the dipping pond this morning [there’s been a noticeable absence of bees & hoverflies up til now]. Whilst there I saw a Reed Warbler singing in the ‘open’ amongst the Alexanders and took a couple of shots for the record [see the pix to see the difficulty through swaying vegetation]!

On Friday, at the very edge of Porthkerry woods near the Millwood Bowling Club, this obliging Tawny gave me time to go home and fetch my camera, for this cropped shot.

Male White Tailed Eagle – on Poole Habour Safaris, the highlights 3 sight of 2 Eagles – Well worth missing the cuckoo on Sunday trip – Well worth 155 miles drive – Well worth getting lost in RSPB Arne day before, end up on the part which being use for Spring Watch next week, 3 1/2 hours (God it was hot) made it back in bad way but Brittern 2022 still walking, just – Well worth suffering overnight Premier Inn Bed to have a White Tailed Eagle as my 200 British Bird since starting July 2021

It was a beautiful Spring morning for our birdsong ID walk on Saturday. The wildflowers were putting on a lovely show. Eight folk came along, welcome all, and in spite of there being some notable exceptions, we saw/heard 37 species. The highlights, besides the many singing warblers, were – a close fly -over of a Sparrow Hawk, a Kingfisher, and Martin took an excellent photo from the hide of two Great White Egrets passing over , while the rest of us were having a great view of a very vocal Reed Warbler.

Full List-

Woodpigeon , Collared Dove, Coot , Great Crested Grebe , Herring Gull , Lesser Black-backed Gull, Cormorant , Grey Heron 

Sparrowhawk , Buzzard, Kingfisher , Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay , Magpie , Jackdaw , Carrion Crow , Blue Tit , Great Tit , Swallow 

Cetti’s Warbler, Willow Warbler , Chiffchaff , Reed Warbler , Blackcap , Whitethroat , Wren , Treecreeper , Starling, Song Thrush 

Blackbird , Robin , Stonechat , Chaffinch , Bullfinch, Goldfinch , Greylag Goose, Mallard.

Many thanks to Dave Carrington for leading

The feeder dock in Cardiff Bay just before Porth Teigr is now busy with Sand Martins claiming holes in the dock wall. The photos were taken on Sat 20th, when there was also a House Sparrow pretending to be a new species – Brown Wallcreeper! There were also a good number of House Martins inspecting nest sites at Penarth Marina, although it was disappointing to see that the residents in an apartment that faces the lock control room, had obviously hacked off several HM nests from last year from their roof facias. Sadly no Swifts were seen at all.

21 GBC members enjoyed a visit to the Castell Nos upland area near Maerdy this morning. Ceri Jones led us round this new location for a field trip and Mike Shewring of the Lost Peatlands project gave us an overview of this important project. Being upland the number of species is not huge, but we logged 36. Highlights were 2 Cuckoos seen from the parking laybay, and 1 or poss 2 later on. Several Whinchats were seen and 2 Stonechats. Tree Pipits and Willow Warblers were singing and 2 Crossbills came down to a puddle to drink. We eventually overlooked the Tarren Y Bwllfa cwm cliff at the top end of Parc Cwm Dare and managed to ‘scope up a Peregrine sitting on a ledge. A selection of my photos below. The bird ones pretty poor as they were always quite distant, plus a couple of interesting invertebrates. The images are individually captioned. Here’s the list [updated 22 May]. John Wilson

It was pretty quiet bird-wise but I was pleased to find a settled Dingy Skipper by the dragonfly pond and also a Red Admiral showing off its underwing nearby. Cuckoo Flower or Ladies Smock is now in flower and Pale Flax is just making an appearance. Cut-leaved Cranesbill is one flower I’m not sure I’ve noticed before. The only other things of note were a Song Thrush singing by the N entrance to Cogan Wood and at least 6 large Carp just below the surface of E lake near the canoe launch platform.

An adult Night Heron currently roosting at Cosmeston, found at 4:50 by Graham Smith. Mostly well concealed in trees on the west lake ‘island’, but did preen for a while at around 7 p.m. and showed its head and long white plume, and yellow feet. V difficult to find unless someone is there with their ‘scope on it.

I led a GBC field trip to the above yesterday, 11th May. The Cwm had Tree Pipits, Redstart and other common species but sadly no Pied Flys or Wood Warbler that we have had there before. By the road above the Cwm as we picniced a Little Ringed Plover dropped in to feed on the grass – bit of a surprise although they do occur at Trefil, over the other side of the hill. A male Wheatear also made an appearance but we failed to fnd 2 Cuckoos seen earlier. At Llangorse the were very vocal feral Barnacle Geese, a Comomon Sandpiper seen briefly but best of all a nest bulding Reed Bunting gave some good photo opportunities 48 Species were logged by the 10 participants. Click here for the list.

A smart male Blackcap was in full flow at Cosmeston this morning, adj the golf course. There were small numbers of Swift, Swallow and Sand Martin feeding low over W lake, a Grey Heron on the far shore and 5 Cormorant on the posts [usually only 1 or 2]. East paddock in particular has some nice patches of Cowslips.

i was amazed at the numbers of tadpoles in the pond near the visitor centre,never seen so many there in previous years.

Birds were disappointing apart from Swifts-20+,Swallows-few,Sand Martins-2 and House Martins-2 11h35-12h40