Skokholm

The lovely lady who has been bothering our Blackbirds

Green-winged Teal

Also had the drake at Newgale around 5.30pm with a decent flock of 70+ Teal on the rapidly draining marsh and river.  When preening the cinnamon stripe at the front of the speculum was obvious, and whilst carefully going through the (mainly) preening females one bird also had an obvious cinnamon stripe in front of the speculum.  A nice overview of the potential features of female Green-winged Teal on Birding Frontiers.

Earlier at Broad Haven 31 Common Scoter & 4 Turnstone, yet again failed to find any Purple Sandpipers.

Black Redstart, Clarbeston Road

We had a Black Redstart picking up insects (which have been rapidly multiplying in the sunny weather) from our outbuildings this afternoon - the first time we have seen one here.

Teifi

A good wander produced usual early March records for the Teifi,
2 Little Egrets, 1 Little Grebe and 1 rh Goosander on the river. c50 Teal around the estuary and the c10 Wigeon that I could find were off  St. Dogmaels Quay. 1 Dunlin on Patch, and a walk upstream along the north side produced an adult Yellow-legged Gull, but no meds... Migrant Shelduck numbers now up to 12 on the sand bars, and one pair at the main breeding location.

Castlemartin Corse

Composite report yesterday and today - Cetti's on the S side back up to 3 singing males, so things are getting back to normal. The 26 chough are commuting between Starman's Hall and a field on Kilpaison Burrows. Duck - besides teal, mallard and wigeon, at least 11 shoveler, 2 pintail (m/f) and an Aylesbury. Female peregrine both days over the fields behind the Freshwater West car park.

Green-winged Teal etc

The Green-winged Teal was showing briefly at Newgale at midday. A Common Lizard and boyo below out at St Davids Hd.

Lapland Buntings and Jack Snipe - Dale Airfield

Gann: c12 Mediterranean gulls inc 5 or 6 very smart adults, a 2cy bird had a green ring on left leg. c25 Common gulls, c30 Teal, 2 PB Brent and a male Goldeneye. Dale airfield: 2 Lapland Buntings and a Jack Snipe, also 25 Snipe. Group of 8 chough feeding on the airfield and later in the valley above West Dale.

Carew Millpond

A kingfisher flew from downstream over the dam and on up the millpond this afternoon.

Newport

Boat Club 17.30 ~ 38 Wigeon, 5 Ringed Plover, 5 Dunlin, 1 Sanderling & 1 Little Egret.

Strumble Head

From Terry Gover:

Spent 50 mins at a glorious Strumble Head this afternoon:

Auks 103

Kittiwake 39

Gannet 12

Fulmar 2

Manx Shearwater 2

Red Throated Diver 2

Black Throated Diver 1

Dolphin 3

Sandy Haven

From the stepping stone bridge looking upstream to the chapel, some 300 B/H/Gulls on a sandbank.
3 adult Meds in with them, plus what looked like a hybrid Med-Blackhead, reddish brown bill & quite distinct windows on the primaries. Also there, several Commons Gulls, 1 Greenshank, 5 Redshank, 1 Little Egret.
Earlier, a Red Kite over St Ishmaels soaring with 6 Buzzards.

Skokholm

Hot on the heels of the first Little Owl since 1995, today saw the first Pintail since 1996. A Jack Snipe was with ten Snipe and a Water Rail at South Pond.

St Davids Hd am

Returned from Spain a couple of days ago to find migration in progress. The first Merlin (a female) was present today and there have been good (but variable) numbers of Meadow Pipits around, along with a dozen Pied Wagtails. I also counted 17 Stonechats today, mostly in pairs and some singing (there are 20+ pairs in the area). At The Gann 5 adult Med Gulls along with 4 x 2nd W and 2/3 x 1st W. One of the adults was displaying to another adult.

Not last Chiffchaff

Spoke to soon - our garden winter Chiffchaff is still here fly-catching in the sunshine.

Skokholm

We're back on Skokholm now so keep an eye on skokholm.blogspot.co.uk for our daily update. A Little Owl on the 4th and 5th was the first to be logged since 1995 and a Whimbrel on the Anticline today was perhaps an overwintering bird.

Castlemartin Corse...

...in the mist and drizzle - lovely! A Cetti's was singing energetically at the eastern end of Gupton at the edge of the reedbed, the first I've heard since before the reedbed was completely flooded in January. Counting not possible but >200 teal, >100 mallard, wigeon, shoveler and 2 pintail. 4 grey heron, a buzzard - and an Aylesbury duck caused a momentary frisson flying over the reedbed.

Newgale Marsh

The Green-winged Teal was showing well on the Marsh at midday. There was also a 4th cal yr Gull present, presumably one of the hybrid Herring x Lesser BB Skokholm experiments.

Last Chiffchaff?

We have had a Chiffchaff in the garden through the winter and it was last seen on the 4th. The night of the 4th was clear with a light breeze so I assumed it had departed to wherever it was planning to go. But maybe that was only down to Mullock Bridge?? (a few hundred yards away - see Steve's report) But our bird never sang so I think not. Question - can you tell when ringing a Chiffchaff at this time of the year whether it is a migrant or winter bird - body fat etc?

First Chiffchaff - Teifi

Chris caught our first Chiffchaff of 2014 on the Teifi yesterday, though it maybe a wintering bird.
See.... A Chiffchaff, Siskin retraps and ...Thai specials    for more from North Pembs .....and beyond !

First Chiffchaff?

Yesterday (4th March) and today Chiffchaff singing at Mullock, Marloes.

Any other migrants around??

Llys-y-fran

No sign of any YL gulls or the RB gull this evening, I suspect they've moved on. A dark coloured female mallard (?) in the bay mid-way up the western side, I suspect its a hybrid as I think there's a splash of white on the chest. Otherwise: c10 Great-crested grebe, 2 pairs of Goldeneye and a pair Goosander. Earlier Red kite at Penblewin Roundabout and another over Crundale (also pair of Kites spiralling like a windmill just this side of Carmarthen earlier today).

Newgale

The Nelsons Gull was still at Newgale this morning and showing well - Thanks to DJA for ID info

Sandy Haven

Mike Jones reported sighting a small immature gull with the Black-headed and Herring Gulls in a field at the top end of  Sandy Haven this afternoon - his thoughts were Little Gull....

Glaucous gull - Ramsey

Lisa found a 1st winter Glaucous gull on Porth Lleuog this afternoon, tucking in to a dead shag. See the Ramsey blog for photos

Also today 40 raven, 20 carrion crow and a flock of 13 chough made for quite a corvid fest.

Castlemartin Corse

A lovely calm afternoon at the Corse. The flock of 26 chough were back in the fields around Starman's Hall (they only seem to absent themselves during our winter farmland bird counts), and the reedbed was alive with the sounds of water rail, little grebe, moorhen, coot, mallard, teal...but no Cetti's warblers. I located a noisy flock of 200 alarmed linnets in a blackthorn thicket high on the slopes of Kilpaison Burrows - they took to the air, only for a female merlin to attack and chase one that it separated from the pack - the linnet eventually went into a steep dive and managed to escape into another thicket.

Picton Ferry

Three Great Crested Grebes actively fished the main channel at the extreme low spring tide.

14455 dead puffins

To read more about the huge seabird wrecks in the west of the UK and more particularly western France, have a look at the Skomer blog on the link on the right - many, if not most, of the birds concerned are part of the west Wales population. NRW have chosen this moment to cease funding for Tim Birkhead's long-running guillemot population study on Skomer - to enable this vital study to continue click http://www.welshwildlife.org/sos/ to contribute.  

Broad Haven & Little Haven

A quick look early evening, just 5 Common Scoter visible from Broad Haven.  Better at Little Haven, with a total of 5 Great Northern Divers, a single Red-throated Diver, and a Med Gull in the roost (which contained 460+ birds, around 380 LBBG, 10 HG, 40 BHG, 30 Common Gull).

Yesterday afternoon at Newgale barely 150 gulls in total, but the stonking big pale Nelson's Gull still there, using the marsh and the beach.

Black-throated divers, Broad Haven - Lapland bunting, Dale

Broad Haven: 2 Black-throated divers, almost missed amongst the scoter flock, 1 GN and 3 RT divers, c150 scoter and a couple of razorbills. Lots of gulls way out in the bay. Gann: 6 Mediterranean gulls, a couple with almost complete hoods, a knot weaving its way between them and 2 pairs Goldeneye. Dale Airfield: nice to catch-up with 3 Lapland buntings in still conditions also 30 snipe.

Cosheston Pill

70+ Black-tailed godwits out from the Cleddau Reach centre at low tide today (presumably the same flock Paul had earlier in the week). There seems to be good numbers of gulls congregating on the bend by the recycling centre these days with c200 BH gulls earlier in the week, though fewer today. Llys-y-fran Tuesday, just the adult Yellow-legged gull of note.

Short-eared Owl - Dowrog Common

Lovely views of one hunting over the south end of the common and a ringtail Hen Harrier roosted. Earlier at Newgale the female Hen Harrier was over the marsh. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Newgale Seabirds

From David Meanwell -

Newgale Friday 28 Feb 3.30pm Corpses at high water mark between car park and brook (400 yards?)

29 razorbills 

3 gannets

2 kittiwake

3 gulls uncertain of type

9 guillemot  one with ring

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