4 Black Redstart: one ad.male around the outer harbour sea-wall again (also present yesterday and Thurs), and another ad.male in the marina, together with 2 fem.types . Lsr Scaup back on the reserve 2pm.
Category: Sightings
Mediterranean Gulls at Porthcawl
Four different Mediterranean Gulls were noted late morning / low tide. A first winter and adult winter plumaged bird were scrounging for chip at SS807773 along the main path just south of Lock’s Common. A superb adult summer-plumaged bird together with another adult winter were roosting with about 40 Black-headed and 2 Common Gulls in the Salt Lake car park near the fun fair at SS821768.
Rhymney Great Wharf
First visit to Rhymney Great Wharf and my first sighting of Short Eared Owls, two of them.
GOS field trip cancelled
The ‘Looking for Great Grey Shrikes’ field trip scheduled for Sunday 22nd February is now cancelled due to the weather forecast for that day.
I will be contacting all those who had given me notice of their intention to join this field trip. Please do not turn up at the meeting point at Neath Abbey Tesco if the weather improves between now and Sunday. The field trip will now remain cancelled.
Thank you.
Cardiff Bay
Lesser Scaup close in by the ice rink this morning.
Various
Male stonechat on hedge, Kestrel on pole at side of rd through Nicholaston. Rooks with nesting material and one skylark at Cefn Bryn. Male sparrowhawk at Oxwich. Male/ female bullfinch pair Upper Killay.
Broughton late am / early pm (low tide)
We visited our caravan today and a walk around the Burrows and to Twlc Point and around the caravan park and farm yielded 3 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Shag, 2 Cormorant, approx 50 (D/b) Brent Geese, several Common, Black-headed, Lesser Black-backed and Great Black-backed Gulls were in among the 200 or so Herring Gulls in the Bay and on the beach. At Twlc Point there was a hunting male Kestrel, 1 Meadow Pipit, 1 Blue Tit and a Long-tailed Tit at the point. Inland at the caravan park and the farmland there were 17 Oystercatcher and 5 Curlew. Pretty quiet, we noted 25 species in total.
Pennard this morning
Chough, kestrel, 2 flyover skylarks, big flock of meadow pipits…. Lots of rooks collecting nest material
Cardiff Bay
Ad.male Black Redstart catching flies on the sea-facing rocks of the outer harbour, and a fem.type in the marina.
Cosmeston
The only things of interest in a shortish walk this morning were two very smart Greylags on E lake. Also there was the unusual sight of the drake Pintail wandering around on the footpath near the bird table by E lake. W lake had the usual Tufties and Pochard and some Teal hiding in the reed edges, and there were 2 Little Grebe and a total of 5 GC Grebe.
Ogmore / Ewenny confluence
A walk this morning from Merthyr Mawr to the confluence of the two rivers yielded 6 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret, 2 Canada Geese, 15 Teal, 14 Mallard, 2 Gadwall and 3 Goosander. 14 Oystercatcher and 2 Curlew were in the adjacent fields. Yesterday there were 37 Teal (15 male / 22 female) at The Watermill.
Cardiff Bay
1 fem Black Redstart and 1 2nd w Med Gull with no feet on the concrete blocks below the long walk-way besides the orange buoys.
Rhaslas Pond
Despite the Ecologist working for Millar Argent declaring that the Rhaslas Area is unsuitable for a Harrier Roost site…… no one has told the Ring-tailed Hen Harrier currently roosting south of the Rhaslas South Dam Wall…………! Excellent find by Mike Hogan once again.
Rhossili and Port Eynon
A female Long-tailed Duck was with a small flock of Common Scoter in Rhossili Bay this morning. There were 70+ Common Scoter in total with 37+ Guillemot and 8 Fulmar.
DB Brent Geese were at both sites with 2 at Rhossili and 19 at Port Eynon. 3 Red-throated Divers and 1 Purple Sandpiper were also at Port Eynon.
Caerphilly area
A Great black- backed gull and 4 GC grebe at Caerphilly moat this a.m, flushed a woodcock this evening while setting out some bird boxes on Rudry Common Trust woodland (Rudry) this evening.Just had a quick look at the Atlas database -really great stuff- Great graphic representation of the hideous decline of Willow tit in E Glam!
Oxwich Marsh
A lesser redpoll, 40+ snipe, woodcock and three little egrets roosting with the herons.
A better ringing session than late, with an influx of finches noticeable. More info here:
http://gowerbirdringinggroup.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/oxwich-marsh-14-february-2015-fiftieth.html
East Glam Bird Atlas – at last.
Not a sighting but significant news.The web-based East Glamorgan Bird Atlas is now live! Wayne Morris, one of the project sub-committee has just passed on the following message:
Data from all BTO national atlases and our bird club has been used to illustrate species distribution maps for both winter and breeding seasons from the 1960s to the present decade. Categories of breeding evidence are shown using a range of symbols, and breeding change maps are offered for 1984 vs 2011. Species richness maps for more than 300 tetrads show the hotspots across the region. Urban areas, rivers and birding sites can be viewed by a simple mouse-click.
Credit goes to the Club committee for having the ambition to produce another local atlas. A book was perceived in the early days as being the vehicle to publish the data. Over time, it became clear that a web-based version would best match our needs, providing easy-to-use facilities to switch maps for each species through the decades. Viewers can now see historical losses and gains of our avifauna in a readily accessible, attractive format – for free. I think it succeeds.
It has of course, been a huge effort. Hundreds of volunteers have spent many, many hours in the field capturing the data over nearly 50 years. In turn, this has been collected, reviewed and stored by the Club and latterly in partnership with our friends at SEWBReC. Thanks to everyone who’s contributed down the years.
Finally, thanks go to Alan, Dan, Dave and Rob for working on the project over the years, from planning fieldwork for the latest survey, overseeing data collection through to final publication with the services of Chris Dee at Garganey Consulting who has done a terrific job in fulfilling our requirements.
I hope you enjoy using our new atlas
There’s too many features to explain in detail so play around with it.
Bracelet Bay
1 male stonechat ….
20+ med gulls.. Several in near summer head plumage.. Plus long stayer E825 a Belgium ringed bird
Ogmore
Highlights of GBC trip to Ogmore today – c20 Goldeneye by Portobello, fem Goosander, wonderful views of feeding Purple Sandpiper at Ogmore-by-Sea, 2 Yellowhammer in Pant Norton [where there was also a substantial bracken fire causing us to summon the fire brigade!], and c500 Lapwing by Norton Farm. 2 Buzzards were displaying over Norton Wood.
Forest Farm
…..and the Little Bunting was still there at 16:00; showing very well from the hide.
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