A walk through Castlemartin Range East yesterday to look at choughs etc confirmed that all was well at most breeding locations with some pairs obviously feeding young in the nest now. The males still seemed to be undertaking the lion share of feeding activity; some calling the females off the nest in order to take them to good feeding areas for a few minutes, or else (as in the case of the photo below) directly feeding the female after she had food-begged with quivering wings and bill open wide etc.
Some pairs still managed to find time yesterday for some "mutual preening" - a bit of relaxation time perhaps during an otherwise busy period.
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| A male gently preens areas around his mates head - she seems to be enjoying it too! |
There weren't too many obvious migrants passing through, other than small flocks of whimbrel heading west along the coast; some inland others offshore - probably 50+ in total during the morning period.
Having had a brief chat with Clive Hurford, whilst watching some swifts at St Govan's Head, it was nice to see that some had returned (hopefully to breed) to their usual sea-cliff territories.
A common tern was fishing off Landshipping Quay last Thurs (4th May). A belated sighting, but having been off-line quite a lot recently it's often been impossible to do anything involving Internet access!
