Lsr Scaup still present this morning with c.195 Tufted Ducks.
The BNG was just down river from the fly-over near the west bank.

Good views of all three bitterns today, and the otter kept popping up and down in the water on the south side of the pool below Margam Castle.

On the river near Ogmore by Sea, a male goosander, plus curlew, oystercatchers and shelduck.

Greg

A great northern diver in the bay eventually flew west.
43 ringed plover on the beach at low water.
6 buzzard and 7 raven over the cliff towards Slade.

17 hawfinch at first light flew from wood with the white house in, and over to the car park opposite, further along the path another 8 in trees beside the first white house they flew in same direction and another 10 returned 20 minutes later then they flew over the white house towards the other valley. 2 kingfisher’s and 7 snipe at forest farm ponds.

Plenty of turnstone but no sign of any purple sandies for me this visit despite a good search. Noticed two other gents presumably looking for them too, hopefully they had better luck.20 Goldeneye  on the river and two stonechat in the nearby gorse. At Parc Slip the bittern was showing quite well as you look out left from the first hide you come to from the car park.It was out in pretty much the open the entire time so had excellent views of it feeding, though obscured slightly by reeds for any particularly good photos. Recommend the lemon cake at the cafe

Thanks Strinder!  29 species including a goldeneye and a bittern flyby .

Thayers type gull(juv),and poss. juv.\1st winter american herring gull on the beach by Burry Holmes around 9.00am.Apololgies for late news,hectic day,and wanted to get some photos checked out.See GRC site for pics.

The Black-necked Grebe was close in to the west bank of the Bay just down from the flyover at 3pm today.

Approx. 15 Hawfinch this morning at Forest Ganol.  They were high up in the trees on the left hand side of the track leading from opposite the carpark, 100m from the road.

Just a quick reminder to say that I’m running a field trip to Rhossili tomorrow morning and then onto Burry Holms for the afternoon.

Details are on the Field Trip pages via the main Glamorgan Birds Website. I’ll be in the car park at Rhossili from 08:00 and we will stay there until 09:15 before going on a circular walk. The weather might be kind to us and all being well the circular walk will have us back to the car park by 11:30. The advantages of turning up early means that if you get to the car park before the attendant arrives then parking is free; otherwise it’s £3 per car. High tide is early morning and hopefully this will bring the Scoter flock closer to shore where they can be viewed from the car park. From 09:15 there’ll be a few stopping points along the coastal path to check the sea and then on to Fall Bay before heading back to the car park via the arable fields. We will not be going onto the causeway or Worms Head.

Due to the recent Gull fest at Burry Holms over the last few weeks I’m planning to tweak the afternoon plan a little to try and include going onto Burry Holms itself. The afternoon part of the day will involve more static viewpoint periods, which isn’t for everyone but with Thayer’s, Kumlien’s, Iceland, Glaucous and Little Gulls all being seen over the last couple of weeks it could very well turn out to be a rewarding part of the day.

So hopefully plenty to see and talk about. Apart from possible parking charges the trip is free. Members of GOS and non-members alike are very welcome to join in. Please come prepared to face the elements and also be advised that some of the terrain will be challenging due to wet and muddy conditions. Also many of the birds on view during the day will be distant and will require telescope views to appreciate them; if you are able to bring a telescope with you please do. If you don’t have access to a telescope then generally on these trips we all offer use of the scopes available to make sure the whole group gets to see all the birds.

The link to the GOS Events pages, including field trip info, is provided below

http://www.glamorganbirds.org.uk/gos-events.html

The female mandarin was to the right of the hide first thing. Roosting with mallard. Then moved into the area where the teal roost a bit further away (also to the right of the hide on the near shore). Counts of 48 teal, 32 mallard, 22 gadwall, 6 little grebe. Est 6-7 shoveler, but no decent count of them.

A red-throated diver was foraging close in off the Oxwich Bay Hotel. Flocks of 120+ black-headed gull, 2 Med gull and small numbers of common gull also present.

A peregrine flew across the bay at Porteynon – and caused a bit of havoc in a gull flock at Slade.

3 Eider still off Mumbles Pier

HI , my friend and i went over to sandwell valley this morning to see if we could see the great northern diver on swan pool–and we were not disappointed!  we had good views of it albeit it was on the other side of the lake.  other species we saw were kestrel, BHG,  canada geese,  swan, coot, pochard, tufted duck, moorhen,  pied wagtail, magpie, wood pigeon, greaterblack backed gull, cormorant, mallard, great crested grebe,  young herring gull, robin, crow, blue tit , great tit,  blackbird, wren and great tit.. 

The elusive Black Redstart (fem/imm) showed once briefly on the roof tops at the beginning of John Batchelor Way at 8.20am and once again at 10.35am.The drake Lsr Scaup was on CBWR among c.170 Tufted Ducks and the BNG was down river from the fly-over near to the west bank.