This morning, a small team (Heather and Dafydd Richards,
Cliff Benson and Frances Eggby, Mark Williams and ourselves) made our first of this winter’s planned visits
to Pwll Caerog Farm, in North Pembs, for the second season of the NT farmland
bird survey.
Despite deteriorating weather conditions, between us all we managed
to record a reasonable range of species. The stubble fields were especially
good for starlings – several thousand feeding in some and possibly up to c.10,000 were in the general area. There were in excess of 600 skylarks in the
stubbles too – like the starlings, most probably feeding on spilled grain. About 60 linnets were recorded, well down on the 100+ we'd noted during an initial recce visit last weekend (in dry sunny conditions).
A
female merlin dashed through the area and a jack snipe was flushed (characteristically
from almost under-foot) in a well-vegetated ditch. A couple of hundred winter
thrushes were also noted (most probably fieldfares) but ID was difficult in the
increasingly misty/drizzly weather.