Broad Haven Slash Pond

From Alan Seago: Warbler-fest Sunday morning. Blackcap, chiffchaff, cetti's, garden warbler and lesser whitethroat. Mallard, 2 canada geese and moorhen on the water. 

Dale airfield and Gann 3.5.26

From Dan Watson: 

A few birds from this am:

Gann (06:30 06:50): 7 barwit, 13 dunlin, 2 ringed plover, singles grey plover and greenshank.

Dale airfield (07:00 - 09:10): 7 whimbrel, 4 wheatear, singles barwit (full summer plumage) and moulting golden plover with injured L/H leg.

Cuckoo

 Calling in the woods behind the pump house at St Brides yesterday  evening. 

Curlew Sandpiper - the Teifi

 A summer plumage Curlew Sandpiper on the Teifi this afternoon in one of the three mobile small wader flocks. 

Totals 12 Whimbrel, 60 Dunlin and 15 Ringed Plover.

 7 Sandwich Terns flew in off the sea at 7pm on the high tide.

Haverfordwest Caspian Gull and Food Festival Visitors

A walk from town to Uzmaston and back today was pretty quiet, but on the way out a 50 gull roost of Herring and Lesser Black-back gulls had assembled at the SWT outfall by lunchtime. On the way back the numbers had increased to around 130, so worth a count and a closer look. As often the case, the count was disrupted by a different gull, a subadult Caspian Gull showing many classic features and posing next to a Herring Gull for comparison.

A couple of Great Black-back Gulls also turned up later.

Haverfordwest town was bustling with visitors to the food festival, but all were apparently oblivious to a Dipper feeding just across the river and feeding on a caddis larva and, just 5m away, a Grey Wagtail was hunting for food for the chick following on behind.

There was plenty more evidence of new spring life with a Mallard and at least three small ducklings on Merlin's Brook and a pair of adult Greylags with six small goslings north of the town. A dead, apparently Blackbird chick was on the path beside Bridge Meadow Trust playground, apparently fallen out of the nest as a reminder that they don't all make it.

The Gann

From Dan Watson: Quick update from the HT roost at the Gann this morning: 23 Dunlin, 7 each of whimbrel and ringed plover, 5 Bar-tailed godwit, singles curlew sandpiper, common sandpiper, grey plover, greenshank and red-throated diver.

A couple of images of the Curlew Sandpiper attached.

Broad Haven Slash Pond

Lesser whitethroat singing from the blackthorn bushes this evening. Also plenty of chiffchaff and blackcap around and a male singing siskin.
Alan Seago

Minwear / South Hook

 A minimum of four Tree Pipits were singing and displaying in Minwear Woods this morning - three in a large clearing, and a further one near the picnic area adjacent to the road.  I also encountered at least three Marsh Tits in the woods near the clearing, and there were a good number of Willow Warblers and Blackcaps, along with Mistle Thrushes, Coal Tits and various other birds. 

Yesterday at South Hook, it was good to hear a singing Lesser Whitethroat. 

Skokholm

The Lapwings have a chick, the first to be seen in Pembrokeshire since 2014. 

Pembrokeshire Bird Report

The 2025 edition of the Pembrokeshire Bird report is now available HERE and on the Reports Page accessed by the tab above. 

White Stork

See earlier post:
The same, or similar, bird was seen at Abereiddy on Tuesday at 4.00 pm flying low over the water travelling north
Sighting by Jeff Tierney

Newport to Fishguard coast - Common Cranes

We made a trip up to the North coast today looking for choughs etc, covering the coast between Newport and Fishguard. Pleasingly, choughs were breeding where expected.

There was a nice steady passage of swallows (about 200 in 20 minutes or so) off the coast near Cat Rock (where 3 pairs of Canada Geese are nesting this year). A male kestrel was hunting near there and a female nearer to Fishguard. 

A very smart adult male

About 20 swifts (small parties) were seen heading along the coast between Fishguard and Pwllgwaelod this afternoon. 

Four relatively late migrant Sandwich Terns were feeding in Newport Bay this morning. A few waders seen there included 4 ringed plovers, a few dunlin and whimbrels. 

However, by far the most interesting birds were two common cranes that flew in high over the sea late morning. They circled around for a while over Newport Bay, before disappearing inland, probably in the direction of Nevern, when they were lost from view. 

Some quick record photos taken when they were closest to me (Bob) seemed to suggest that they were not ringed/colour-ringed. However, because rings on this species will be above the tarsus joint, they could possibly have been hidden by the dark body/thigh feathers. Hopefully someone will get good views of them on the ground when it should be possible to confirm if they are ringed, possibly from a breeding programme/release scheme, or not.

Cattle Egret.

 One at Westfield Pill this morning.

White Stork

From Gethin Jenkins: 

Today at around 12:45 a white stork flew right over us at maiden hall carpark, newgale, it came from out to sea fairly low, labouring against the strong easterlies, then rose up much higher,  circling above southwood farm before gliding off northwards.

An incredible sight, my first in this country.

The Slash Pond

From David Meanwell: 

As we seek to raise the profile of the Broad Haven Slash Pond Community Nature Reserve you may be interested to know that it has recently been recognised as part of the National Forest of Wales and the first community Nature Reserve to achieve Naturfa status.

From informal records we have noted 21% of the Welsh Government Section 7 list of bird species of principal importance.

Your support in making use of the Reserve as birders is much appreciated.

 

Black Kite-Haverfordwest on 26th.

Have just reviewed some images which I had assumed were of a distant Red Kite. About midday on the 26th,from my back garden,I saw what I thought was a Red Kite circling above the Uzmaston Road. I went in and brought out my camera since sometimes, Red Kite fly directly overhead.However, the Kite moved north behind a large fir tree and emerged much further off and higher up. I just fired off some shots to test the autofocus. When I eventually checked the very small images, I was surprised to see the bird was in fact a Black Kite. This fits in well with the 

warm anti-cyclonic weather. Moral: shoot first, use bins later!

Sorry about the image display, maybe because I am using Win 7.
 

Goodwick-Strumble Head yesterday; Caldey Island today

Yesterday morning (Sunday 26th) we walked the coast path between Goodwick and Strumble Head. A cuckoo was calling at Ciliau Moor where they have been seen/heard in previous years. A few sedge warblers were singing in coastal wetland areas and a lesser whitethroat was singing in dense blackthorn scrub patch where there is usually a likely breeding territory. One was also singing in dense scrub on Trewent Point on 25th April, during a walk from Freshwater East to Stackpole Quay. Small numbers of whimbrel (flocks of 5-6) were passing west along the coast on that morning.

Today we visited Caldey. There had been no boats last week due to easterly wind, and it could be the same for the next few days, so were were pleased to get over there today. During the crossing we could see a huge gull and auk feeding frenzy, involving hundreds of herring gulls, many kittiwakes, razorbills and guillemots, in Caldey Sound. The moving but dense feeding flock stretched eastwards and closer to Saundersfoot. 

On the island we were impressed with the number of likely water rail territories present. Based on presence of calling males, we recorded and mapped not less than five likely territories. All involved  patches of gorse or bramble scrub, four were near the coast, one was nearer the village, but none involved wetland habitat. We have noted water rails in similar places on Caldey in previous years. Here they appear to have adapted to a completely different type of habitat - perhaps they should be re-named Caldey scrub rails! 

A grasshopper warbler was also singing in one of the scrub patches on the east side of the island. A pair of greylags are likely to be breeding near Sandtop Bay. Herring and LBB gull breeding activity was well underway, with many seemingly incubating.

It was a disappointing day for choughs though; only one territory seemed to be occupied. None were seen or heard at two other sites where we usually expect to confirm them to be present and breeding.  

On the return trip to Tenby, a puffin was heading in the direction of St Margaret's Island, where there is usually a small population. As we passed the lifeboat station, we noted 3 turnstones and a purple sandpiper resting under the old lifeboat station slipway support structure. 

Grasshopper Warblers

We also had a Grasshopper Warbler in scrub behid St Brides Church when doing our BBS on Saturday. I assume that most of them are on passage - it reminds of a BBS we did years ago on April 22nd 2004 when we had FIVE Grasshopper Warblers, singing from all sorts of places!

Rosemary Royle

Mynydd Dinas

 2 cuckoos and a grasshopper warbler reeling in full sight the highlights of my BBS this morning between Mynydd Dinas and Bedd Morris before the mist rolled in. 

Tenby Leisure Centre

Grasshopper warbler reeling in the little marsh opposite the Leisure Centre car park early this morning. Still going as I left after my swim. 

South Hook

 The wild area behind South Hook really comes alive in spring, especially first thing in the morning, with a wide variety of birds. Today, it was good to watch this Grasshopper Warbler reeling away for several minutes. 

Overall, I encountered about 30 species there and on my short walk up, with Whitethroats, Sedge Warblers, Greenfinches and Bullfinches among the other birds present. 

Carew Millpond

As I got out of the car at 0930 in the N side car park, a lesser whitethroat was rattling away in the bushes along the N side of the Millpond. He was working his way up and down, and most uncharacteristically helpfully perched in full view in a tree. He worked his way east up the road, but an hour later when I returned he was back along the edge of the car park. 

Carew Mill

From Paul Fraser: A number of Swallows arrived last week but House Martins did not make an appearance until after we visited on Tuesday of this week. Good numbers of House Martins today, about 20 birds but Swallow numbers still low. However, a number were feeding low over the stream upstream of the Carew road bridge.