Pink-footed goose, Marloes Mere

A Pink-footed goose on the mere this evening, seen flying westward towards Skomer with Canadas later. Plenty of water. A Dublin ringed 1w GBB (6H7:D) among 500 Herring gulls. 3 Tufted duck. 44 Lapwing. 200 Starling. 2 Kestrel. 14 Chough towards Martin's Haven. The landward side of the coast path towards Martin's Haven has an electric fence running alongside it, so the rough pasture is out of bounds at the moment.

Great White Egret - Hook

 A Great White Egret flew up the Western Cleddau by Hook Quay early this morning, returning about 15 minutes later when it rounded Fowborough Point. It was not in Sprinkle Pill by the time I arrived so presumably went further downstream.

Osprey Landshipping 5th time lucky

After four visits over the past month an Osprey obligingly put in an appearance for me at Landshipping this morning at about 11am. Good view as it circled and and made its way downriver. Always impressive to see.

Flock of 42 Dunlin nice and close in but they refused to be anything other than juvenile Dunlins! Another 18 or so flew to the west shore. Other waders included just one Greenshank, 13 Redshank, 2 Oystercatchers and 2 Curlew, and on the west shore, 9 Ringed Plover, more Curlew, a single juv Bar-tailed Godwit, c75 Lapwings, and the now very large and impressive Golden Plover flock that, at a very rough estimate must number 800-1000 birds. The plover flock took flight on several occasions and looked fantastic with the morning sun on them, showing in turn the brilliant white underparts and golden brown uppers!

There were 44 Teal, and 12 Wigeon near the quay but on the far shore was a further flock of at least 114 Wigeon. A Peregrine put in a late appearance presumably responsible for flushing the Goldlies a couple of times earlier. Also noted, amongst others, a Kingfisher, 3 Shelduck, 3 Great Crested Grebes, and a Chiffchaff., oh and a birder on the west shore (hi!). 

Firecrest

From Alan Collens: In my Cosh. garden this morning a Firecrest put in a brief, welcome appearance  in a loose feeding flock of Goldcrests and Tits. 3 Redwings SE overhead and at least 5 Jays around.

Pembrokeshire Bird Conference

The 2024 Pembrokeshire Bird Conference is on Saturday 30th November at Pembrokeshire College in Haverfordwest. Book using this link below (not the one on the poster): 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pembrokeshire-bird-group-conference-2024-tickets-1037817629467

Little Crake - Bosherston

The Little Crake, showed very well for 40 mins (0930 - 1010) to a small group of us this morning. As recent posts, the Crake is now performing around the second bridge, a couple of times it fed under the bridge a few metres from us. 

(Sev obs)

Ring Ouzel

Ring Ouzel - Rosebush Quarry, the first of the autumn - Sunday evening, (Den Vaughan)

Pallid harrier

Superb photos of last nights Pallid harrier kindly sent through by visiting birder James Thorpe.

Little Crake

From Dave Butler: The little crake was eventually relocated by the second bridge from the car park and gave very good views.

Pallid harrier, still the Dowrog

The Pallid harrier obligingly put in 3 appearances this evening, 16:20, 17:20 and 18:00. The first appearance was particularly close to where Clive and I were standing midway along the road. Three visiting birders from the Midlands who we were chatting to managed some spectacular photos (James will hopefully send some to share on the blog). Between the first two sightings Jack Williams reported the harrier on St Davids airfield. On the final sighting it looked as though it dropped in to roost among the scrub where harriers typically roost. It was interesting to see it's dashing flight as it flushed pipits, it's tailed fanned out like an air break to enable it to turn abruptly.

No other harriers this evening but a Barn owl hunted around until dark, settling on a post to eat prey. A cattle egret flew over as I got back to the car in the gloom (Pete had better views). George and Fiona stopped off for another look and it was nice to meet Jean Dovey who also took some nice photos. Kevin and Pete turned up just a bit late after twitching the crake, which seems to be venturing further than its usual grassy bridge spot today.

Whooper Swan(s) over Martletwy this evening

At 6.15 pm, just as we had arrived home, one (possibly two) Whooper Swans could be heard flying over our house. Unfortunately, we could not see them due to low cloud and drizzle. Their distinctive contact calls suggested they could have been heading towards the Eastern Cleddau, where one or two have been recorded in previous autumn/winter periods. 

Hopefully, they will have landed somewhere in the area this evening and will be seen during daylight, and in better visibility than this evening. Perhaps they will be recorded somewhere in the estuary during the WeBS this coming weekend.

Nice variety of waders and duck at Landshipping

Enjoyable couple of hours birding at Landshipping yesterday afternoon post high tide with Ali and the dog. Nice to see some small waders this side of the river! 

Roosting on the rocks or feeding along the available shoreline were about 35 Dunlin, 9 Ringed Plover, 17 Oystercatchers, 1 or 2 Curlew, 9 Lapwing, about 40 Redshank and 6 Greenshank.  High in the air over the west bank of the river were large numbers of Golden Plover, perhaps 3-400, spread across the sky in multiple flocks, presumably flushed from there high tide roost by someone or perhaps a raptor?

Plenty of Teal around, at least 50. and small numbers of Wigeon and Mallard, and 2 Great Crested Grebes. Also 2 Rock Pipits along the foreshore a little way to the south. The one I saw fairly well looked like a classic Rock Pipit but I wondered if Water pipit would be a possibility here?

Mistle Thrush, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Goldcrest also noted....

Some more on Little Crake - first for Pembrokeshire

Following in the footsteps of many others, we went over to Bosherston Lakes late yesterday afternoon to see if the  Little Crake was still present. 

Caroline Pickett and a few others had been watching it just before we arrived. After several minutes, it appeared again near the edge of the strip of bur-reed (Sparganium) where we all had reasonable views. 

A while later it got close enough to see more detail, including the slight amount of red at the base of the bill and the longish primary feather projection. It moved around quite a bit, in and out of patches of  emergent and floating vegetation. It sometimes moved quite quickly, occasionally darting about  slightly erratically as it chased small invertebrates, such as small snails which it picked off the rotting lily pads  etc. 

At one point it flew up from and back into the reedbed from where it called briefly – some quite short trill/churring sounds (slightly reminiscent of short bits of a nightjar) - possibly a contact call, or perhaps an alarm call? Hopefully, if it continues to stay for a while, someone might get a recording of the calls.

Other species seen/heard included several Coot (not very common at Bosherston Lakes these days), Moorhens, a few Water Rails (calling from within the emergent vegetation close to the Little Crake zone) and a couple of Kingfishers.

Greylags over Carew

Greylags are back into their winter routine of flying SSE in the morning, and NNW in the evening, roughly on a track between the Carew River and the Tenby-Penally area. Except, the last couple of days, >100 have been flying SSE in the late afternoon, which is the wrong way round. Their morning track is currently over Carew Airfield, in two or thee groups, my view obscured by trees, but the late afternoon activity tends to be directly overhead. If anyone knows where they're going.... 

PS 11.00, around 75 greylags have just flown back NE, over Carew Airfield. What is going on?

PPS 11.45, Carew Millpond - 140 Canadas, and 1 greylag. 

Dowrog - Pallid Harrier and other raptors

A very enjoyable afternoon in the sun yesterday in the company of other birders from near and far. It turned into a 6/7 raptor session with Pallid Harrier, Hen Harriers (adult male and ringtail), Peregrine, Buzzard, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk all showing. The most frequent flier was the one everyone was there for - the Pallid. It showed on a number of occasions between 3 and 7pm. Always in a hurry, it covered a large amount of ground, being visible to observers both over the common itself as well as over the fields to the north before disappearing over the brow of the hill to the south. A quite beautiful bird.

                                        A late appearance by an adult male Hen Harrier

                                                        A stunning sunset to round off the day

Little crake

Managed to get there just as the crake was showing in it's favoured spot beside the grassy bridge this evening (SR 97587 94727). It spent most of the time weaving in and out of the lefthand reeds on the western side pausing and picking up invertebrates I presume. Would have been easy to miss if you didn't know it was there. Flock of Lapwing flew across the lake, still a few swallows passing and 2-3 Kingfishers.

Bosherston by the grass bridge

Little Crake 1 juv showing on and off in the reeds in 1 1/2 hours from 430 

Moorhen 5

Coot 10

Lapwing 15

Mallard 7

Buzzard 1

Hawke Optics Event

I realise this is commerical advertising but I thought it might be interesting to Blog readers as we don't get many of these kind of events locally:

Little Crake at Bosherston

 As some will be aware, a Little Crake has been at Bosherston Lily Ponds for at least the last two days, with photos of it having been put on a Facebook Group.

This morning, the bird was still present, having being seen at first near "the Grassy Bridge" and then walking round the corner from there to near the next bridge along (the bridge to the right of there as you face Bosherston.) It was great to be able to have good views of it, and to take some photos.

 

Restless winged spirit over Dowrog! Starlings off for breakfast and wow, the sky last night!

Spent yesterday afternoon at Dowrog and after missing the Pallid Harrier by 10 mins it finally reappeared at about 4pm. What a great bird, amazingly buoyant, almost tern-like flight, agile, and fast, a restless spirit!, covering a large area in a short time. Went way off to the west over farmland at one point then did a wide circuit back over the common, frequently mobbed by crows! 

An added bonus was several sightings of Hen Harriers including a well marked ringtail and a superb adult male. There were 2 well separated sightings of each so not sure how many were present altogether...

Early morning at Llawhaden Thursday

Just after 7:30am a long stream of 700-1000 starlings hurtled low across the valley eastwards, presumably dispersing from a roost, perhaps from the reedbeds along the Cleddau?

Aurora show

Amazing to see the beautiful dancing lights across the sky last night. My second lifer of the day! Thanks for posting those stunning pics Bob and Annie.