Goodwick flagpoles low tide. 1 Bar Tail, 1 Curlew, 6 Mallard, 12 Turnstones, 1 Pippit and various gulls.
Newport Parrog. 1 Curlew, 1 Little Egret.
Iron Bridge. 67 Mallard, 8 Moorhen, 1 Kingfisher, 1 Heron, 4 Canada Geese, 3 Little Grebe, 5 Merganser feeding in the pool below the bridge and 1 Green Shank.
A large flock (150-200) sunning themselves S slope of Mynydd Dinas 1715 today.
From Paul Fraser: A small flock of approx 40 black tailed godwits near Monkton bridge on Sunday walk round the pond. Regular visitors this time of the year, but normally less than 10 birds. All were gathered together probing the shallows.
Yellow-browed warbler, Porthclais and an eastern looking Lesser whitethroat by Rhosson Ganol. George and Fiona.
Richard, Rob and I covered Castlemartin Corse WeBS today. Richard and I covered Upper section, Rob Lower section (and I did the bit in the middle too!).
Rob also covered Broomhill Burrows WeBS. Area is dry so nothing was seen of note for WeBS.
Castlemartin Corse is extremely dry. It does raise the question how much rain do we need to get any standing water down there? Even the river / mud crossing that prevented me linking Upper to Lower Corse last year was easy to cross. The count reflected the dry conditions of the Corse.
We had 2 Grey Heron that graced us by lifting and flying over the reed bed, a Water Rail was heard from the hide and another heard skulking in a ditch on walk back towards Upper Corse. Something lifted 2 Snipe from the reedbed off from the hide and a lone one was flushed from usual fields of D8-9 on walk back up Corse. I first heard a curlew before locating there were 2 in field D4.No Duck or Gull Species seen to count.
Rob had a pair of Chough, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and flocks of Goldfinch and Linnet. Walk from Upper Corse to hide 6 Cetti warblers were identified. A Pied Wagtail was seen on way back (possibly linked to herd of cattle in one of the fields). It was noticeable that there were a number of Robin singing along the route, 4 Jay flew across the corse while Rob and I was in the hide, and as corse was quiet enjoyed watching some of the more common small bird species such as Reed Bunting (5), Stonechat (8) and a male Blackcap.
Raptor wise it was a quiet morning. One sub adult Marsh Harrier was seen along the Corse being mobbed by the crows and a Buzzard was seen on the Upper section.
From Steve Smith: Quick walk around Colby gardens this afternoon
Nice to bump into Sarah and George at the Gann this afternoon. Sarah thought she had seen a Spoonbill drop into one of the channels in the saltmarsh but it hadn't reappeared. I crossed the footbridge and walked upstream and it soon appeared in the main channel, later moving to the lagoon. Nice find Sarah! Also 2 Cattle Egrets dropped in to the saltmarsh.
From Peter Smithies: a flock of 10 Cattle Egrets around a week ago in one of the Philbeach Farm fields (9 here in his photo).
Also around a week ago, NCI Coastwatch noted a/the White-tailed Eagle around the Deer Park for several days before it was reported on Ramsey.
This weekend: female Marsh Harrier at West Hook, Water Rail in Martin’s Haven valley
Very Pleasant couple of hours birding with friends contributing to the Big October day organised by eBird, coinciding with World Migratory bird day....
A welcoming committee of about 25 House Sparrows greeted us at the car park. Then lovely views of a nice selection of waders including Oycs, Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwits, Redshanks and Greenshank, Turnstones, Dunlin and Knot. Good to see a party of 7 Pale bellied Brent Geese (no young amongst them though).
Excitement when a female/imm Merlin dashed across the bay putting up some of the waders!
At least three Great Crested Grebes were out in the bay plus a 'bunch' * of 38 Wigeon along the bank......at least 12 Little Egrets, pair of Mute Swans, a juv Heron, plus Grey wag and 5 Rock Pipits on the pebbly shoreline.
Thirty species in altogether..
Apparently a collective noun for a group of Wigeon!
Water levels still very low, probably the lowest I've seen it so 2 juvenile Common scoter was a bit unexpected. About 3,500 LBB roosted many out on the far bank. 100 BH gulls and 50 herring gulls. 7 GC grebe, 5 liitle grebe.
Very quiet for cetaceans at Strumble today but a reasonably close pass by a Great Skua was a bonus. At the flagpoles in Goodwick a Curlew feeding on Shore Crab, then at Iron Bridge Newport, a Heron, Green shank and Little Grebe rounded off my morning.
Half dozen individual jays passing across the road between Haverfordwest and Dale. Felt birdy on the sheltered track up, a firecrest popping in and out of the ivy was one of the first birds to appear, 3 chiffchaff and a blackcap tuk, tuk, tuking. Clouded yellows and red admirals as well. Juvenile Marsh harrier cruising around the airfield before drifting towards Marloes. Dozen golden plover, 10 snipe, 4 lapwing and single ringed plover. 2 young wheatear, among the skylarks, pipits and linnets around the runways. Quite a few birds in the bracken and scrub overlooking Marloes Sands, a few goldcrest, dunnocks, robins, great tits and best of all another Dartford warbler. 200 starling gyrating but couldn't see what was alarming them.
From Richard Harris: Just a quick report of a raft of circa 40 common scoter seen off Nolton Haven this evening slowly paddling northwards towards Newgale. A record photo on my iPhone was unfortunately not worth the effort. The sunset however was:
As well as the usual suspects the mixed weather the past week brought in Sandwich and Common Terns, Curlew, a single Wigeon, Bar Tail Godwits (2) and today two Teal.
