6 Redwing in trees opposite our house this arvo.

Birding seems a bit quiet after Panama!

Kingfisher on E lake, just 1 drake Pochard with the Tufties, 2 Common Gull and 3 GCG were the highlights on a brief walk b4 the rain.

Lsr Scaup still present in CBWR with c.200+ Tufted Duck.
52 Common Gulls on the orange buoys at the barrage with 2 GBB Gulls. No sign of Bearded or Willow Tits this am.

Female mandarin apparently still present at Oxwich (per Nick Edwards of NRW).
Quick kick around Mumbles Hill this morning only resulted in 2 blackcap.
However, there appeared to be 2 divers well offshore from Knab Rock (too distant to speciate with bins and no time to get closer) – may be worth a look.
4 eider (3 fem 1 sub ad male) were present off the pier / Knab earlier this week, but were not present yesterday.

Out of county.Great excitement in the Zeiss hide today when a Grey Heron caught a large Water Vole no more than 20 metres away! After a short struggle the heron gave up and dropped the vole which made good its escape.

Six hawfinches seen from the path, about 100 m from the entrance opposite the car park.

Yellow-legged gull probable 3rd or 4th winter Larus michahellis atlantis on the swan feeding spot near the entrance this morning 10am to at least 11:30 – looks a lot like the bird we saw on 28th and 29th November.

 

also a Grey Plover on Sully beach yesterday

http://andyburnsphotography.zenfolio.com/p220725598/h3a7da751#h3a7da751

 

 

An amazing count of 206 Mallard on the pool this afternoon which is a record for me – I would be interested to know of any historical higher counts. Also present was a female Northern Pintail of note. A Bittern showed extremely well in the first cut from the South Pool Hide – out in the open for a good five minutes at about 15.30, the Siberian Chiffchaff was with a mobile Long-tailed Tit flock to the right of the hide and a Common Chiffchaff was in a gorse bush in the East Pool Fields. Otherwise a Redshank was on the East Pool Shore and seven Common Snipe were in the East Pool Marsh.

\\\yesterday, late afternoon. 8 goldeneye, 2 redshank, c70 canada geese, lots of little grebe, curlew, mallard grey wagtail, pied wagtail, llittle egret, teal, bh and herring gull.

with Geoff Busby, snow bunting put up from the beach and seen flying off toward broughton.approx. 35 common gull ,16 herring gull and 4 GBB gull.pre roost flocks of approx 80 mixed sanderling\dunlin,distant flock of knot and thousands of oycs.everything quite mobile as the tide pushed up.Tried out at weobley,but 1 peregrine,so most other species V. distant.

 No Lap buntings seen or heard,so does make me wonder whether yesterdays fly-over was a misidentified snow bunt. call??

 

4 redshank,1 curlew,1 kingfisher (yes honestly), 12 cormorant, 1gbb gull, many bh & lbb gulls

Aberavon – Shelduck (2), Common Scoter (5), Red-throated Diver (2 + 2->w), Great Crested Grebe (58), Little Egret (1->w), Guillemot (5 inc 1 sum plum), Auk sp (10+). Also 1 Grey Seal + 1 Harbour Porpoise + 1 very distant cetacean which did a full breach – most obvious explanation would be a Harbour Porpoise? The briefest of views of a leap that wasn’t exactly towering but it did seem a little big for a Porpoise at the distance (4km). Sadly I couldn’t relocate it or find any obvious seabird presence in the immediate area..

Crymlyn Burrows – Common Scoter (1), Red-throated Diver (1->w), Great Crested Grebe (272), Ringed Plover (192), Grey Plover (10), Sanderling (163), Dunlin (26), Bar-tailed Godwit (2), Mediterranean Gull (1st W + ad), Common Gull (92)

Blackpill – Great Crested Grebe (144) (per comm AWF)

Several fleeting flocks of Hawfinch flying around this morning. One flock of 7 birds watched feeding.

100+ gcg’s here this morning along with usual flock of oycs, mixed gulls, 4 bartailed godwits

A ringtail Hen Harrier was at the commons south east of Heol-y-Cyw this afternoon.

Very little! 18 Red-throated Divers and 108 auks, all west, during a ~20min watch from the point. Still a few hundred Common Scoters in the bay, but always distant. Nice views of a Marsh Tit in the woods and nice to hear plenty Goldcrests this winter. On the marsh there were 27 Gadwall, 15 Wigeon and 13 Teal on the north pond.

5 slavonian grebe close in on the high tide at wernffrwd. At Landimore, 1 lapland bunting heard calling in flight with skylark out on the edge of the saltmarsh.unfortunatley, most of the wildfowl were pretty distant while i was there.

Water Pipit just upstream of the sewage works bridge, (7) Goldeneye, (30+) Teal, (6) Gadwall, Little Egret and at least (10) Little Grebe.

Adult winter Med gull on East Lake around 10:30 – had disappeared by the time I left at 11:30

Andy Burns managed to get a distant shot of the gull – it was asleep but it amazed me he got any sort of shot at all

http://andyburnsphotography.zenfolio.com/p585642274/h73c05ac#h1b88ed18