Hen Harrier

 A second year male Hen Harrier at Pen Anglas this morning.

WeBS Cleddau and Llys-y-fran gulls

I covered Davids WeBS from Hook Quay to Sprinkle on the weekend, despite living in Haverfordwest I rarely get onto the estuary these days so always nice to have a few hours down there. The Golden plovers at Sprinkle totalled 2830, a flock of c200 Dunlin were flying around the Picton Point junction settling on both sides of the river before heading up towards Landshipping, 390 Lapwing at Hook (with a very similar number later at Sprinkle, so likely the same flock). 280 Canada geese flew down from somewhere above Millin Pill and dropped noisily on to the river with 23 Greylags. 45 Redshank, 34 Curlew, 22 Snipe, 15 Ringed plover, 9 Greenshank. 4 GC grebe. 285 Teal, 117 Wigeon, 86 Mallard, 27 Shelduck. 

Llys-y-fran gulls this evening. A decent sized gull roost, 1800 LBBs at 4pm increased to 4600 at 4:20pm eventually totalling 5500. BH gulls reaching a respectable 2650. 5 Yellow-legged gulls (3 adult, a 2cy and 1cy). 3 adult GBBs. A couple of interesting large grey mantled gulls, the smaller one had the look of a LBB/HG cross, the other much larger gull gave more Caspian vibes both gulls were packed tight to the far side out of the chill so hard to see much detail. I'd left it late getting there which meant picking much else out in the failing light was hard. 3 Goldeneye up beyond the hide. 6-7 GC grebe and 3 Little grebe. I could hear numbers of Canada geese arriving as I was leaving at 5:15pm, too dark to see by then.

Rosy Starling back again this morning in LLawhaden

 As yesterday, the juv/1W is hanging around with the Starling flock but very mobile. As it doesn't actually come into our garden I am struggling to get a pic!

Carew/Creswell WeBS

We were away this weekend and our WeBS counts on the Carew/Cresswell and Daugleddau were delayed until this morning.

The usual variety of waterfowl in the Carew/Cresswell section included lower numbers of wigeon and teal than last month (c.170 wigeon cf. 300 in October and c.120 teal cf. 190 in October). 75  shelduck were present which was an increase from very low numbers in October.

It seemed possible from calls heard on the Carew River at first light that a large flock of feral geese might have roosted overnight there, or perhaps had just flown in. They included 95 Canada geese and 215 greylags. This was the largest greylag total we have recorded on the Carew River to date during a WeBS count there.

52 oystercatchers were roosting at a favourite spot, including orange “smudgy” 58 left leg that was ringed at the Gann by Paddy Jenks and Michael Sherman in March 2018. This morning it was roosting within just a few inches of where it was photographed at roost with other oystercatchers last January. 

It was nice to see a bar-tailed godwit roosting with them – this being one of the less common waders in Carew/Cresswell system.

Around 50+  redshanks and 3 greenshanks were roosting in expected usual places, plus 110 curlews and c.150 lapwings but dunlin were decidedly scarce. There were  around 30 on the Daugleddau but none were seen at usual roost sites on the Carew River today.

Several herons and little egrets were dotted about along various parts of the shore and a great egret (probably the one reported last week) was feeding well up the Cresswell River this morning - telescope view only and much too far away for a photo.  

An immature male red-breasted merganser was feeding on Carew Millpond trying to keep out of the way of large numbers of bathing gulls. The last one recorded here during a WeBS count was 13-years ago in November 2011. 

Corse harriers

It looks as if we have up to 5 marsh harriers on Castlemartin Corse, increased from  3 in Sept-Oct - 2 ad female types, and up to 3 juvs. They don't all show at once, but much time in the field (Caroline, Amy, Alan, Rob and me, again not all at the same time), and much poring over photos, suggests it's 5. 

Pallid harrier, still the Dowrog

From Roger Wilkinson. Dowrog this aft: 2CY male Pallid Harrier flew through at 15:15 heading W. Ringtail Hen Harrier arrived at 16:00 and pitched straight into the bushes. 2 Kestrel. 4 Buzzard.

Porth Sele: female Merlin, Red Kite, 7 Curlew

LLawhaden welcomes a (the?) Rosy Starling!

A scruffy but nonetheless very welcome, juv-first winter Rosy Starling has joined the resident Starling flock (about 250 birds) in the village. Presumably the bird seen a while back at Tenby? 

Seen a few times from the extension window late morning as the flock periodically alighted on a large Ash tree in between sessions of feeding...(ranging between the medieval hospital and farm to the east).

Seen a few over the years but never had one come to me!

No decent pics yet....

Wiseman's Bridge Divers Sunday late morning

Saw 3, probably 4, Red-throated Divers off shore while on a family walk along the beach. Always glad I have my bins to hand...

Having recently moved from land-locked Berkshire (after 18 years there), seeing Divers on a family outing is still very much a novelty! 

Newport estuary

 Sanderling 1 

Dunlin 10 

Ringed plover 20

Redshank 1

Oystercatcher 6

Curlew 20

No sign of the white rumped sandpiper ☹️

Large Shearwaters SW of Grassholm

 

Great Shearwaters off Grassholm (Padrig Rees)

On Tuesday 12th November and Friday 15th November, Padrig Rees, owner of Thousand Islands Expeditions, was fishing 20 miles SW of Grassholm and reported large numbers of shearwaters associating with blue finned tuna, common dolphins and minke whales on both days.

There were 'several hundred' birds in total spread across the 2 days, split into several smaller groups. The majority were Great Shearwaters (of which he got a couple of pics above) and there were smaller numbers of Cory's, Sooty and Balearic. A Great Skua was also logged in amongst large numbers of gannets, kittiwakes and large gulls.

This late recording of large shearwaters in UK waters ties in with records from Cornwall this year where association with tuna has also been noted

Thanks to Pad for the records and the photos

Corse falconers

Two raptors that did not feature in our WEBS count - we spotted these two with goshawks on their wrists, totally illegally, on Broomhill Burrows. We were 1500m away in the hide. I've redacted their faces so as not to cause problems for the blog. If anyone knows who they might be, please contact either the NT (Mark Underhill, George Mee) or me. I can send unredacted photos. 

They could account for the absence of the usual curlew on the dunes that we were expecting. It's also a regular feeding area for chough. 

PS I'm grateful to Rob Davies for identifying the birds as....goshawks, post corrected accordingly. So probably after pheasants or rabbits. In my defence they were nearly a mile away! 

WeBS Castlemartin Corse

Richard and I went to Castlemartin Corse today for the November WeBS count.

The water remains high which leant itself to many birds in the upper section of the corse.

The gulls were hanging out in this upper section. We totalled 140 Herring Gull, 200 Black Headed Gull, 1 Common Gull and 1 Lesser Black Backed Gull.

There were 3 Black Tailed Godwit trying to blend in and hide amongst a flock of Lapwing. Across the whole area we had 700 Lapwing. 

A fair proportion of the wildfowl species were also in the upper section but across the whole area we totalled 94 Shoveller, 210 Teal, 320 Wigeon, 180 Mallard, 3 Pintail and 2 Goldeneye. Excuse the poor quality images of the Goldeneye and Pintail but loading for record sake! 

One of the two Goldeneye

One of the three Pintail

3 Mute Swan were first seen in the upper section and then joined us again a bit later towards the hide. 

We had a couple of small flocks of Snipe as well as the ones we lifted as we walked the route, totalling 51. 

At the hide 2 Little Grebe were hiding along the edge of the reedbed, Water Rail were heard and 4 moorhen put in an appearance. The grey heron was at its usual spot on the far side of the open water (one of two seen today). A grey wagtail made a brief appearance just in front of the hide.

The 3 Marsh Harriers were showing well today from the hide. Here are a few images of them. 

Adult female on ground with 1CY bird in flight

Same 1CY bird with the other Marsh Harrier on ground

1CY bird with adult female below

The highlight of the day though has to have been this encounter with a female Kingfisher, one of the two individuals observed today.

In other news.... the starlings are ever present towards Starman’s sitting on the wires and flying around the Corse. A buzzard was seen on one of the fenceposts towards Starman’s. As usual several Cettis warblers were heard along the route and one Reed Bunting was heard from the hide along with seeing the resident wren. A flock of 14 stock doves were seen on our way back up the Corse. 

 P.S A robin kindly photobombed most of my images of the kingfisher!

Newport Estuary

 The White Rumped Sandpiper still present at around 8:30 this morning it was with a couple of Dunlin and a Sanderling. When I arrived at the Iron Bridge there was a Great Egret but it had gone by the time I returned around 10:00 am.

Castlemartin Corse yesterday

Three marsh harriers in the air at the same time yesterday (Alan Merrett, Rob Lewis) - one probably one of the regular ad. females, one 1CY bird probably female. 

The very welcome standing water is, alas, only expected to persist until they unblock the outfall.

photo Rob Lewis

photos Alan Merrett

White-rumped Sandpiper - Newport

I decided to visit Newport this morning - mainly in the hope of seeing a Water Pipit. I was unsuccessful with that, but as I looked out from near a bench - about half way between the Parrog Car Park and the Iron Bridge, I noticed a few small waders and took some photos. One of them was a late Curlew Sandpiper. It wasn't until I got home that I realised that there was another smaller wader that I had photographed that I was struggling to identify. Thanks to the help of others, I have now discovered that it was a juvenile White-rumped Sandpiper - not a bird that I have seen before. Hopefully, it will still be around for at least the next day or two for others who would like to see it.