Steve Sutcliffe had mentioned to us recently that there were 2 (possibly 3) pairs of choughs on Caldey this year from an earlier visit he'd made.
With many choughs now having fledged young, it seemed like a good idea to go over there and see if there were any family parties at expected locations. Pleasingly, we found two chough families: a pair and a single youngster between the lighthouse and Redberry Bay and a pair plus two young further west between Redberry and Sandtop Bay.
Our Caldey bird-list for the day wasn't too long but we had a surprising, if brief, view of a yellow wagtail, calling as it flew over one of the now ungrazed meadows between the lighthouse and the monastery. It looked like quite a bright male bird but the views weren't sufficiently long enough to determine its race.
Today, at Castlemartin Range West, it was nice to see a female kestrel. She was aggressively diving at a raven near a known kestrel nest site. Fingers crossed that breeding will be successful here this year as kestrels do seem to be quite scarce along the south coast this summer.
