A Ring Ouzel was at the seaward end of the valley this afternoon. Also around were Merlin, Wheatear, Grey Wagtail, Chough [2], Swallow [40], several each of Blackcap and Chiffchaff, plus a couple of Clouded Yellow butterflies.

just a few images i tool on aberavon beach on 12/10/14

 

Llanishen: a full walk-through of the reservoir basin (courtesy of Celsa, for the WeBS count), produced 1 jack snipe among an impressive 79 common snipe. The jack snipe was separate from the main flock of snipe, at the pool in the NW corner.  Also, 1 water rail, 2 shoveller, 36 teal, 22 tufties, 3 pochard, 27 mallard, 3 little grebes, 1 GC grebe, 1 moorhen, 9 coots and 1 cormorant. Passerines within the reservoir included 8 linnets, 13 meadow pipits, 4 goldfinch, 2 grey wags and 4 song thrushes. The large numbers of snipe being flushed attracted a male peregrine.

Lisvane: 16 little grebes, 6 GC grebes, 6 pochard, 43 tufties, 7 mallards, 2 mutes, 2 cormorants, 53 coots, 2 Canadas, 54 LBB gulls, 28 BH gulls, 3 H gulls, 1 heron and a grey wag.

Roath Park Lake: 4 shoveller still present, just 1 teal today, 1 common gull was my 1st of the autumn, 1 Mediterranean gull (ad winter), and the old faithful colour ringed LBB gull blue AKZ.

From Green Point: 1000 Redshank, 1 fly-by Dunlin, 235 Shelduck, 80 Pintail, 18 Shoveler, 2 Snipe. Just 11 Teal on the river by Lamby Way. At the Heliport Bay, 6 Curlew & 15 Oyc, and another 200 Shelduck.

Good to see plenty of species and fair numbers of birds using the vile.not much in the way of vis-mig, most birds grounded , or flying around the general area.
Plenty of forbids at Rhossili, 6 raven, 11 carrion crow, 60+ jackdaw, highlight 12 or poss. 17 chough (depending if 5 flew past me after counting initially). Managed 2 with rings; yellow over green left leg , and white left leg. Probably local, but would be nice to know.
Other species, mead. Pip (72), dunnock(14), robin(9), magpie(8)..o.k ,also a corvid,
Pied wag. (18), chiffchaf(1), blackbird(8), greenfinch(2)….the first I’ve seen in months around Gower…goldfinch(8), linnet(120+), stonechat(1).
2 sacrificial dwarf?barley fields provided 42 skylark, 6 reed bunting, 1 fem. yellowhammer and 7 house sparrow…..the latter 2 quite scarce out here. These 2 fields( east side of Vile path) could be worth a look.
8 swallow and 2 house Martin over , and 2 peregrine and a sprawk keeping all passer ones honest.
Mewslade: pretty quiet, apart from a merlin over, and juv. Dartford warbler

45 goldfinch, 3 chiffchaff, 3 blackcap, a 1st winter kingfisher and a juvenile male sparrowhawk this morning among a catch of 127 birds on the marsh.

Passage of skylarks over head, plus a few siskin and a group of 4 jays.

More info here: http://gowerbirdringinggroup.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/oxwich-marsh-12-october-2014-finches.html

Good movement this morning from sunrise; Pied/white wagtail 350+, Chaffinch 600+, Meadow Pipit 250+, Mistle Thrush 4, Jay 2, Blackcap 1m, Chiffchaff 2, Reed Bunting 2, Swallow 200+, Golden Plover 3, Sparrowhawk 1, Buzzard 1, Raven 2, Goldfinch flock c 200, Linnet flock c300, Greenfinch 2, Grey Wagtail 1, Starling 30 and Skylark 35. GNS heard Woodlark which he and AB re-found in large coastal stubble field. This remained in general area until late afternoon.

Short visit late this afternoon – highlight was a Merlin keeping the flocks of linnets and goldfinch on their toes

Shoveler (5) and Teal (2) were a nice surprise during today’s Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) count.

Both are scarce species at Roath Park Lake in terms of this survey. This was only the 10th WeBS record for Shoveler at this site (the last being in April 2011) and, incredibly, the first record of Teal. No doubt there are other non-WeBS records for both species at Roath Park on the GBC database.

An enjoyable morning around Mumbles Head with Darren Coombs, Becky Sharp & Owain Gabb. 50 species were noted between us. The weather was seemingly very kind to us from first light, when compared with what we could see was occurring nearby, and only a brief period of light rain before a huge downpour at 12:30 that brought the field trip to a close. The good numbers of species seen today included some very nice records. One of the highlights was a stunning adult Pomarine Skua (shown above) found by Darren as it was flying over Bracelet Bay. Owain found a very elusive Dartford Warbler near the car park and Becky saw a Whinchat there too. Other highlights from the day included Great Northern Diver (1), Stock Dove (1), Wood Pigeon (72), Green woodpecker (1), Goldcrest (7), Sky Lark (8), Swallow (c650), House Martin (34), Chiffchaff (3), Blackcap (17), Stonechat (9), Grey Wagtail (2), Chaffinch (63), Linnet (38) & Goldfinch (34).

Female wigeon with all the mallards , first one I’ve seen here. Grey wagtail also.

Notables from this mornings visit were 27 Med Gulls on the rocks at high tide, probably the flock that DGC has been seeing in the fields around Nottage, also 26 Knot and 4 Sanderling. 3 D.b.Brents flew down channel and 4 Wheater were on the beach.

Just rec’d a call from Alan Cripps. He’s got a Grey Phal in the pool by the block house at Sluice Farm just over the border in Gwent. The block house is an obvious cubic structure on the seaward side of the sea wall to the W of the path that leads up to the sea wall by Sluice Farm.

Near Caerphilly mountain today, a goshawk was being intensively mobbed by a sparrow hawk and eventually departed SE.

Yesterday on Roath Park Lake: 1F and 1 eclipse drake shoveller.

Yesterday on Lisvane Res: 15 little grebes, 6 GC grebes, 12  Canadas, 3 pochard, 39 tufties, 6 mallards, 2 mutes, 47 coots, 1 cormorant. Among 52 LBB gulls, 4 H gulls and 19 BH gulls were 2 mid-tone larus gulls, but nether looking entirely convincing as yellow-legged.

Managed to get over to the Point for an hour this morning – no sign of the Firecrest from yesterday but lots of finches, mainly Linnets and Goldfinch, with a few Redpoll and Siskin heard overhead but not seen. Several Skylark and Meadow pipit, 4 Reed Bunting and three Stonechat.

Three unusual records were a Little Egret overhead, a Kingfisher flying over the field !? and my first Yellowhammer here for about 10 years – is this a description species for this area?

Yesterday: Lsr Scaup from the boardwalk; c.150 Tufted Duck; 3 Shoveler ;1 Teal; no Wigeon; 1 ad Med Gull. 2 Stonechat (m+f); 1 fox again.

At Cossie this morning a Snipe flushed from grass about 50m beyond the dragonfly pond – the first for me this autumn. Also 2 Chiffchaff, & Green ‘Pecker of note.

Lavernock 4:15 p.m. – the Firecrest found by Phil Bristow this morning showed very well in the Field Maple tree by the road, in the garden of Church House, until about 4:30 when it poured with rain. A stunning, very bright bird.

Thanks for the plug Mark. The day formally starts at 10am but I’ll be out ringing from early morning. We plan to put the nets up at first light and hope to start processing birds at 7.30am if we catch anything! You are welcome to come and watch. To get to the ringers’ table, walk past the southern hide, through the avenue of willows and bear right when the path forks. Look for the table on the left after about 50 metres. At some point we will move back to the centre and catch a few birds next to the car park in the afternoon. Bird ringing is weather dependant but at the time of writing the conditions look pretty good for Sunday.

For people wanting to maximise their birding on the day, high tide is at about 9.24am. There have been good numbers of waders this week between Sker Point and Rest Bay. They can be seen on any tide but are closest when the tide is right up. Low tide is at 3.34pm when many gulls and waders will have moved onto the mussel beds off Sker Beach.

Kenfig Pool has been poor for birding this autumn but water rails, snipe and a kingfisher have shown really well in the cuts out from the southern hide. A female pintail has been about for weeks. An otter has been regularly feeding in the lake over the last few weeks, often quite late into the morning. A great white egret put in a brief appearance at the saltmarsh during the week and with light easterlies and overcast conditions there is a chance for another rarity or two to turn up over the weekend.

Cakes, hot drinks and children’s craft activities (in the afternoon) will be available in the reserve centre and there will be guided walks starting from the front of the building. We are keen to enthuse children about birds and birdwatching so please make a special effort to invite families and point out birds to children. We look forward to seeing you!

Looks like there are good opportunities to join in with some birding activities this weekend either at Mumbles on Saturday or at Kenfig NNR on Sunday.

Mumbles Head tomorrow for a chance to have a look around the bushes and hopefully observe some visible migration. There were good numbers of Sky Larks and Meadow Pipits moving through Crymlyn Burrows earlier today but also 22 Swallows and a House Martin passing through. Hopefully the calmer weather tomorrow will encourage some more migration with perhaps something special mixed in. I’ll be at the Mumbles Car park from 07:00 and will remain near there till 08:00 before moving up onto the hill. Depending on numbers of birds and participants we’ll probably stick around the general area till about 11:00. We’ll never be too far away from the car park so joining up at any time before 11:00 should be fairly straightforward. My contact details can be found on the contacts page of the main website, if planning to join later give a call in the morning and I’ll be able to tell you where to find us.

The Sunday event at Kenfig looks really good too and I’m sure that will be further promoted on here later today or tomorrow. All event details are found via links on the main website