A beautiful sunny day with the wind in the east was perfect for a visit to the coast for a check on winter visitors. A single Red-throated Diver was off Newgale beach and a summer plumage Great Northern Diver was off Maidenhall Point preening and splashing for a while before finally diving. About 80 Common Scoter and four Wigeon were not far away. A big surprise was a chattering and squeaky flock of about 70 Fieldfares that flew up the coast then turned in towards Southwood fields.
Further south at Nolton Haven a Chiffchaff was calling in the scrub by the stream beside the car park and two Chough flew overhead. On the headland north of the haven a second Great Northern Diver was busy feeding, never surfacing long enough for a picture, but obviously a different bird - much greyer and lacking the strongly patterned back, so probably a juvenile. 62 Common Scoter were mainly in a couple of rafts just to the north. Several butterflies, probably all Red Admirals, were on the gorse and swarms of flies were along the path.
Further south were more scoters, another pair of Chough and a single Grey Heron. A rolling flock of about 200 Starlings was in a field full of black bales. A scan back northwards produced a count of about 150 scoter in a tighter grouping, possibly some groups merging at their feeding grounds off Rickets Head as the tide was falling. None of them appeared to be rarer cousins.
A noisy Peregrine was resting amongst a patch of feathery debris in a favourite location. A single Gannet flew down the coast near Broad Haven and a single Turnstone was on a slab at Shag Rock, but no sandpipers were visible.
A bonus picture of a pied Blackbird from the weekend on the coast at Manorbier where I was, ironically looking for exotic thrushes:
