7 dark bellied Brent geese opposite Norton House

per Graham Tierney: flocks of Redwing over today. Flocks counted so far :- 60+ , 8, 7, 5, 32.

A dozen or so Redwing flew over about 3.30pm.

The Roath Park shoveller flock has grown to the dizzying heights of 5, with 3 teal also present today.

Sighting posted on GOS from Mark Hebden:

“Great White Egret seen briefly on our lake. Fuzzy but definitive record shot as it flew off towards Hensol Lake . Out of county sighting but tried to post on Glamorgan site but beaten off by complexity!”

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.