Newport

Iron bridge - kingfisher, 2 Common Sandpipers and a Little Egret.
Also 8 Swifts flying around my house.

Mute Swan killing Bar-headed Goose - Teifi

The pair involved are well known to us as they nest at Mallard Pond on the Reserve, raising 3 cygnets this year. The article in the link says it all...and we are now less 1 Bar-headed Goose !
Rare goose killed by swans on the River Teifi in Cardigan

The Gann

2 Little Grebes being the latest returnees, 50+ Curlew, 2 long staying Kittiwakes - well one is, the other looks like a Kittiwake but seems to have pale primaries (?) Whimbrel calling & a Ringed Plover on the road near Mabs Gate.

Sealyham

A Green Sandpiper seems well settled now and will be with us till April but it would be interesting to know if there are just a couple or a turnover. Kingfisher also back from time to time.

Carew Mill

Just one Med gull in evidence this afternoon, resting with BHGs on the bank below the dam. Handsome ad. with full black hood. 4 dunlin feeding on the Millpond.

Some late summer birds

A couple of grasshopper warblers were singing at Llangloffan Fen (noted when setting up moth-traps with Robin Taylor last night) and 2 quails were calling from a nearby wheat field at dusk.

Earlier in the day a small flock of 15 mistle thrushes was searching for insect food in the extremely dessicated dune grassland on Stackpole warren.

Oystercatcher green T554

In a couple of posts below mention is made of  Oystercatcher migration through the Teifi estuary.  Last Sunday - 15th July, Gary Reynolds found a colour-ringed Oystercatcher in the roost viewed from  The Webley Hotel.

Green T554 --
The Oystercatcher was ringed --

 ........ Kverme, Brusand, Hå, Rogaland, Norway - 58°32'37"N 005°44'25"E
Aged as a 3+ year old bird and ringed om the 3rd May this year - 2018 

 T554 has travelled 720km from the site of ringing to the Teifi and appeared to move on after roosting.
The Migration Atlas (BTO) shows this to be a known movement for birds from this presumably Norwegian breeding population.

Mediterranean gulls, Carew

2 Adult birds around the causeway and the Mill this afternoon. Ian Bartlett.

Teifi Marshes and Estuary at Webley

We took a visiting friend Allen Moore from the IOM up north today and had a nice walk around Teifi Marshes, ending our visit at Poppit Sands (Webley). The usual expected warblers were seen/heard in the marsh where from the kingfisher hide an otter was nice to see - although the local mallards weren't too happy about its arrival in the pool.

Over on the estuary there must have been close to 200 oystercatchers roosting and further down at the Webley we noted 4 Med gulls (2 adults and 2 juveniles) at rest with numerous BH gulls there.

However our attention was drawn to a carrion crow that walked along the sand to where several GBB Gulls were resting. Almost systematically he (it was probably an adult male) went to the rear of each gull and pecked/pulled at their tails, causing each gull in turn to suddenly wake up from their resting/slumbering positions and look at the crow in annoyance. The crow persistently did this until all the gulls were forced to remain standing. He even seemed to be trying to teach his single offspring to do the same. It seemed most bizarre and we couldn't see an obvious reason for his persistence - perhaps he just wanted to have the beach all to himself and his family?

It was a comical end to our visit anyway.

Where do they go?. & today @ Newport

A question I've (rhetorically) asked before re ringed gulls. Case in point; Herring Gull White 2PH, at Newport yesterday, was ringed as a subadult at a Gloucester landfill site in March 04. There were then nearly 50 sightings at the same site in subsequent winters till Dec 2010. Then nothing till the sighting in Newport nearly 8 years later.
Today by the bridge 3 Greenshanks, 2 Whimbrel, a 2cy Med & a juv Common Gull & the Iceland Gull of a couple of days ago ( which is a different bird to the Iceland Gull I saw there in April & May, which was completely white), were noteworthy.

Migration through the Teifi

Oystercatcher numbers are increasing with 221 in the estuary today, one flock of 180 looking and sounding like they will continue south today, Curlew and Black-headed Gulls are feeding in all parts of the estuary with the odd Med and Common Gull around. Swifts are still feeding over the Marsh in the late evening with 100's of Swallows and in the reedbed un-ringed Sedge Warblers, Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps are moving through now. c40 Starlings came in to roost last night and we have at least 3 creches of juvenile Shelduck, each 10-12 birds.

TOPS - can you help with the important new BTO Tawny Owl survey?

Despite being widespread, we know surprisingly little about our Tawny Owl population. The BTO’s core monitoring schemes do suggest a recent decline at the UK level but usual daytime surveys can’t show the full picture for this normally nocturnal species. 

So, from 15^th August to 15^th October, the BTO will be running a survey of Tawny Owls across Britain, to compare the current population with that of previous national surveys carried out in 1989 and 2005. 

By extending the survey to multiple seasons there are also plans to look at changes in the Tawny Owl population over the course of the year and compare it to productivity and survival recorded by other BTO monitoring projects like the Nest Record Scheme and Ringing Scheme. Through this survey, it is hoped to learn much more about these noisy but often mysterious neighbours.

To find out more, and how you can get involved, follow the link to the BTO survey page here.

The Gann

A juvenile Common Gull earlier this afternoon.

Newport

Between the bridge & the tennis courts this morning, the brood of 9, now almost fully grown, Shelducks still with their parents, 2 Blackwits, 2 Greenshanks, 3 Redshanks & a Belgian juv Black Headed Gull.

Lapwings

Four in the Sandyhaven area this morning.

Hobby at Llandilo

Yesterday afternoon a Hobby spent a couple of minutes chasing our local Swallows before heading off south.

Ramsey chough

Despite the cold spring it was a successful season on Ramsey. A joint record 10 pairs held territory with 9 of those going on to nest build and begin incubation. 2 of these pairs (both new) failed at the incubation stage but the 7 remaining pairs fledged a healthy 22 young between them (all broods of 3 or 4 bar one pair who only got 1 out)

Fledging period was slightly protracted but nothing out of the ordinary

Potential problem now is the baked hard ground although families still doing well at the moment with fledged birds taking surface insects and feasting on the plentiful ant hills on the island

Large flocks around at the moment of between 25-40 birds, a mixture of merged family groups and non breeders