Newport/Nevern estuary

 Highlights this morning were singles of Sanderling, Grey Plover and male Shoveler

From Roger Wilkinson: Walking from Treleddyn: 7 shoveler on the farm reservoir.

Trefeiddan: beautiful male Hen Harrier hunting over the pwll and then robbed by a buzzard after a bit of a tussle. Couple of snipe.

Along the coast path from Porth Clais towards lysgi: pair of Dartford Warbler, pair of Med Gull in the fields. Plenty of auks working their way out of St Bride's Bay past Carreg Frân.

Dowrog: male and ringtail Hen Harrier from 330.

Pen Beri pond: WF Goose with Canadas.

Newport - Shoveler

On the river, seaward of the Iron Bridge this morning, was a handsome adult male shoveler, hanging out with a female and a male mallard.

Another Firecrest

Along the northern Nevern coastpath, just beyond the limekiln. One close up (& possibly another nearby). Many Snipe flying around the bridge.

Your 2025 bird records...

A plea for everyone who watches birds in Pembrokeshire to please ensure your records are submitted to County Bird Recorder Jon Green by the end of January.  Details of how to do this are on this page.  If you put your sightings on eBird there is no need to do anything, Jon will have access to these records.

Your records will also contribute to the Annual Bird Report, which you can also find on the blog on this page.  If you don't submit your sightings then your records are essentially lost, and the historical record will be that bit poorer.  Thank you!

Gann

A low tide wander at the Gann produced 21 Brent Geese, all adult birds and 2 of them were dark-bellied. Another bird may have been a hybrid as it showed mixed characters, the rest obvious pale-bellied.

Spring low tides tend to attract a lot of gulls, accessing tasty morcels that are usually not accessible.  Most notable was a lot of Common Gulls - I decided to try a count and got to 401!  Less than 5% were young birds (2025 juveniles). (Dave & Lisa).

On 2nd a Hen Harrier flew south over the Dale/Milford road at Mabesgate, near St Ishmaels, and yesterday (3rd) the 11 Whooper Swans were still at the top end of Sandy Pill, in the field on the west side near Rickeston.

Tenby

 Just 2 Purple Sandpipers under the ramp of the new Lifeboat station and a female type Black Redstart on the roof of the Tenby Museum late morning.

South Pembs day out (yesterday)

Spent the day out yesterday to start off the year. A nice day but freezing in the wind and occasional sleet shower!

Started off at Tenby - Great Northern Diver, 3 Red-throated Diver offshore and a few waders on the beach (6 Ringed Plover, 1 Turnstone and 3 Oystercatcher).

Had a quick walk along Tenby marsh which produced a Firecrest and a minimum of 6 Chiffchaff. 

Spent the afternoon around Castlemartin and Angle. Many thanks to Richard for clarifying access to the upper sections of the Corse. When researching before going there last week I noticed that the old right of way (through the farm buildings) is also on recent OS maps, only to make matters more confusing. As Richard says, the new right of way starts just up the road from the church and is signposted - if you take the path to the first gate you get a good, although distant view of the wet fields. A spotting scope is needed to view the birds below.  

The start of the footpath just up the road from the church.

The view of the Corse from the first gate along the footpath.

The 2 White-fronted Geese were still present in the field on the north side of the Corse yesterday viewable from this location.

Where the footpath crosses the Corse is where the water pipit was the other day. I didn't see it yesterday but did have brief views of a calling Rock/Water Pipit flying west which I suspect was the water pipit but it didn't come back whilst I was there.

Other birds from here yesterday include lots of Golden Plover and Lapwing, 2 Redshank, 9 Dunlin and 17 Pied Wagtails - a Firecrest showed briefly by the churchyard as well. 

Wandered out to the hide later in the afternoon but with water levels continuing to fall there was not too much visible. 8 Whooper Swans still present and with c200 Teal, 2 Shoveler and 43 Mallard. The two Marsh Harriers also made a brief appearace in the wind. The highlight (probably of the whole day) was a superb male Merlin chasing the finches by Gupton farm. 

Whooper Swan 

Finished the evening at Angle harbour for the rising tide. Typical waders roosting on the spit including 25 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Greenshank, 38 Redshank, 1 Knot, 100+ Oystercatcher, 200 Dunlin, 18 Ringed Plover, 2 Grey Plover and a few Curlew. Plus 30 Shelduck and 4 Pale-bellied Brent Geese. Out in the bay a Great Northern Diver, 8 Great Crested Grebe and 2 Slavonian Grebe still present.

Final day total was 84 species. 

The Gann

A couple of hours at low tide. 26 redshank, 25 Ringed plover, 22 PB Brent, 2 greenshank and a chiffchaff in the scrub.

Dowrog

From Sandra Young: 2 hen harriers male quartering at the Dowrog this evening

Colour ringed Bar-tailed Godwit (05) - West Angle

Thank you for the observation, Colour ringed Bar-tailed Godwit (05) at West Angle (31/12/2025), was first ringed at the Gann on the 25th November 2025.

Teifi marshes

 Jack snipe 1 by mallard hide 

Common snipe 1 

Little egret 1

Little grebe 4

Goldcrest 4

Pembroke castle pond 2nd January 2026

From Paul Fraser: Three Greenshanks on mud by Monkton Bridge together with female Goosander in the shallows moving quickly just below surface, three  Little Grebes in the middle of the pond. 

Cattle Egret, Whoopers

Cattle Egret in with the horses, at the top of the hill junction from Rickeston to Capeston farm.                     Whoopers still present in the usual field, though I couldn`t count them all accurately it looked like all eleven were there. A  Firecrest yesterday

was a nice surprise in our garden, moving swiftly through a camelia bush before I could get to my camera.

Colour ringed Bar-tailed Godwit West Angle New years eve

Further to recent mentions of ringed Barwits at Angle:

Colour ringed bird on the spit at high tide 31/12/25 with a flock of c20: Plain orange ring left leg, black ring on right with 05 in white. 

Where was this been ringed? 

Also 8 Little Egrets, 20 Redshank, 2 Greenshank, 1 Ringed Plover, 100+ Oycs. 

Also 6 Pale-bellied Brent geese, one Great Northern diver, at least 15 Great Crested Grebes but couldn't find any Slavs.

Happy new birding year to all!

New bird on New Years Eve at the Dowrog.

 We, (Fran and self), were with Paul Grennard and another birder Chris, enjoying some nice Hen Harrier action 2-3 males and a ringtail. A surprise sighting found by Fran was a Great White Egret! It took off  from a field at the western  end of the moor when she was walking the dog near the cattle grid.and was also seen by two other local birders who were parked there. 

Paul and  i had seen a distant little egret flying away to the north of where we were stood at the "half way spot".When Fran joined us and told us about the GWE,.it had us wondering, could we have mastaken the identity of the bird we had seen? About twenty minutes later i saw the GWE rise up from the direction of Penberi Pond and got everyone on it, obviouly a different bird,and much larger, presumably Frans GWE. 

The Dowrog has been a great provider of nice birds over the past twnty odd years for me and many others  but the GWE was a really nice addition..especially as not that long ago it would have been a real stonker!

Newport and Fishguard Lower Town this afternoon

 1 grey plover downstream of the bridge and 1 knot down near the Parrog the highlights at Newport this afternoon. A male shoveler in with a large flock of mallard (30+) just upstream of the bridge seemed unusual for this location. A total of 9 moorhens feeding on the exposed island.

2 dippers by the bridge in Fishguard Lower Town.

Firecrest

In the roadside vegetation just below Bryn Henllan, on the road down to Pwllgwaelod, this morning

Corse - Whitefronts, access

The two whitefronts were resting near the ditch. 

Toby's mention of the right of way had us checking the PCC website - sure enough, this appears to show the old route through the farm buildings (running diagonally through a shed!). This was the subject of a temporary, much later permanent diversion by PCNP, 30-40 years ago, when the sheds were constructed athwart the path. Why this map should be on the website today - no idea, it's wrong. The present route leaves the road above (south of) the church, and crosses the Corse to the east of the former route. Maps of both below - the new official route highlighted in yellow (as per the official PCNP map - approx location of the geese today indicated by blue circle). 

Old route through sheds

The official route in yellow, location of geese today shown by blue circle

Luckily I met Will the farmer as I got back to my car, and asked him about it. He confirmed that the "yellow" route is indeed the route, not the one through the yard, and he is very keen that people do not go down to the yard, or indeed turn left after the sewage works, without permission, as it isn't a PROW and you might meet a dairy bull (Rob Lewis and I had a narrow escape a few years ago) - this is the normal WEBS route, but strictly with the farmer's permission. Mike Hayes turned up at this point, and was able to hear all this again. With Will's permission I was able show Mike where the geese were today. 

A further source of confusion: on the new route you may encounter an overgrown stile, no longer maintained. If you do, retrace your steps a short way as the route now runs along the other side of the hedge. 

Whooper Swans

Still eleven at Rickeston this morning at 09:15hrs

 

Rosebush and Llys-y-fran reservoirs

With the influx of geese and other interesting wildfowl nationally I thought the reservoirs would be worth a look. Rosebush reservoir: 12 diving duck but only Tufted duck (8m), 7 coot, 6 teal, 3 little grebe and a single GC grebe that was calling. Llys-y-fran: After being devoid of geese on recent visits tonight there were 500+ Canada's and an encouraging 104 Greylag but nothing else with them. 6 GC grebe. A dead drake goldeneye was drifting down the reservoir. Only a handful of gulls at 3pm, the roost formed opposite the hide. Just a single adult YLgull and 2 GBB so I called it a day early. George and Fiona had a double figure count of goldeneye and 2 YL gulls.

Sightings from today

From Paul St Pierre: Some bird sightings from today:

Pemberry Pond: 1 Russian White fronted goose, 50+ Canada goose, male shoveler late afternoon.
Caerfai (south of St David’s): 2 grey geese over west which were probably white fronted goose at lunchtime.