A home form home

 Bore da pawb croeso.

No blog for a while as I have been away on leave.

Just before I left a few projects were underway and I am please to say they are now finished off .

Protecting the winter hibernation roosts of Greater Horseshoe Bats, GHB's) at Pembrey Country Park has been a long held campaign, well with funding from Welsh Governments Local places for Nature and the huge support of Isabel Macho and Matthew Collinson in securing those funds; six of the seven WWII bunkers now have secure and improved roosting opportunities.

I engaged Vincent Wildlife Trust, Vincent Wildlife Trust | Conserving threatened mammalswith…  to be our consultants on the project and both Dan and Jenny have been nothing other than fantastic working with one of our countryside contractors they ensured that the work, which has involved building walls and installing metal gates to a design GHB's will use.

Not without issues as the GHB's have already returned for the winter, well four of them never left! Work, conducted under licence, had to start and stop a few times, but now its done.

Monitoring will continue as it has done for several years with hopefully an increase in hibernating and maybe fingers crossed, breeding GHB's. - I have just realised I haven't taken any photos of the finished work !!

A project I do have photos for though is the Sand Martin nesting box project at our Ffynnon Helyg proposed Local Nature Reserve.

Designed delivered and installed by John and Jake from Green Future Building, Green Future Building Ltd (GFB) - Green Future Building it wasn't without its issues though, within seconds the van they were driving got stuck in the only patch of mud ! Well an hour later and we were underway again.

The units provide 96 nesting holes for Sand Martins, mitigation and future proofing for the potential loss of their breeding site on Burry Port East beach. It may take several years before the birds decide to move in, but in the meantime we will prepare the nesting holes with sand and grit to provide as natural an experience as possible for the birds.

The reason the units appear so tall is that John from GFB has worked out that the birds are more likely to use the higher holes, we will plant willow whips at the rear to help hide the supporting piers.

Well that's it for this week....

More tales of the sea... one way or another

 Bore da,  croeso pawb.

Wedi bod yn bythefnos prysur iawn – mae gwaith y gaeaf ar y gwarchodfeydd natur wedi dechrau, a mae prosiectau eraill fel blychau nythu Gwennol y Glennydd yn mynd ymlaen nawr.

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks – the winter work on the nature reserves has started, and other projects like the Sand Martin nest boxes are underway now.

The incessant rain since the start of September has certainly made up for what has been, in my opinion, an almost perfect summer, can the rain now stop !

Sabines Gull

The series of Low pressure systems has delivered some nice birds to the coast, including multiple Grey Phalaropes, Arctic Terns, and Sabines Gull.

Additionally the influx of Glossy Ibis across the UK has reached Carmarthenshire.

Interesting though less welcome have been Portuguese Man 0 War "jellyfish". The Portuguese man o’ war may resemble a jellyfish, but it's actually a siphonophore—a colony of genetically identical organisms called zooids. These zooids develop from a single fertilised egg and bud into specialised parts that can't survive alone.                  Together, they function as one creature,                                                                                                         working in unison to move, and catch food.

The Fin Whale continues to fascinate locals and out of area visitors alike, I have managed to remove the skull, 5m x 2.5m, with the aim of removing any remaining flesh through the winter and eventually creating a display at Pembrey Country Park.

Anyone visiting our Morfa Berwig Local Nature Reserve will see that the winter work programme is well underway, phase 1 is complete with phase 2 planned for later in the winter, don't panic it will look amazing next summer. - go an have a look!

Ar ôl blynyddoedd lawer, dw i’n hapus iawn dweud bod ein safle Ynysdawela’n ffurfiol nawr yn Gwarchodfeydd Natur Leol. Mae’r broses gyfreithiol wedi cymryd tipyn o amser, ond ’di llwyddo cyrraedd y pwynt yna, ac ’dan ni’n gwybod nawr y ffordd orau i fynd drwodd gyda’r pethau cyfreithiol

After many years I am delighted to announce that our Ynysdawela site is now officially a Local Nature Reserve the legal process has taken an age, but we've got there and now understand the best and appropriate routes to navigate legalities .

All at sea or not

 Croeso pawb

A short blog this week to record an unusual and unpleasantly sad event.

On Monday afternoon our Lifeguards reported a large cetacean washed ashore on Cefn Sidan, initial inspection that evening found the decomposing body of a large Whale, measured at around 20-22m in length, weighing possibly as much as 30 tonnes

My initial thoughts were either Fin Whale, Balaenoptera physalus or Sei Whale  Balaenoptera borealis.

The carcass is quite decomposed especially on the ventral side whilst all colour seems to have been lost from the skin on the dorsum, it may be the outer layer has been lost.

The finding was reported to the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, CSIP.

UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme

Their team attended on Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd September and identified the whale as a Fin Whale, the second largest mammal on earth, considered vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN.

Follow this link for more information, Fin whale - Wikipedia

Any further information from the CSIP will be in the next blog

Butterfly bonanza

 Croeso pawb,

Summer 2025 just keeps on giving, my feeling is that there has been something of a bounce back from the recent run of poor springs and summers, especially when looking at numbers of some species of butterflies and bees.

In the past week I have been mooching about the nature reserves and country parks and have been delighted with the numbers of butterflies and bees seen.

At Pembrey Burrows I did a circular transect over the middle saltmarsh, taking in the swathes of Sea Lavender, it was only around 500m in total, however I counted the following: Common Blue 15, Meadow Brown 8, Large White 4, Small White 5, Small Heath 2 and Clouded Yellow ♂ 1. 

Clouded Yellow, Colias croceus , image Butterfly Conservation

Feeling suitable impressed I then did another circular  transect of around 300m on an area of recovering embryonic dunes nearer to "The Nose" Common Blue 13, Meadow Brown 4, Small White 34,  Small Blue 3

I was really pleased with the counts but they paled into insignificance when I "popped in" to look at an area we are trying to recreate a wet area, a dune slack.

Growing in the slack is an area about 20sqm of Water Mint, Mentha aquatica, I was stunned by what greeted me, there were over 200 butterflies in and around the mint with at least a further 100 flitting over other adjacent areas of mint and a few Purple Loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria.

Without professional photographic equipment any photograph would not do the scene any justice.

A rough estimate of species recorded would be, Common Blue 140, Meadow Brown 55, Small White 45, Gatekeeper 20, Small Blue 5, Small Heath 4, Clouded Yellow 3 ♂ and 1 ♀, Red Admiral 1

Even more interestingly the ♀ Clouded Yellow was very pale, and likely to be the form helice, 

Clouded Yellow ♀, ssp Colias croeus, f helice, image UK Butterflies

Highlights

 Bore da pawb, Croeso.

There's not a huge lot to shout about, but what there has been is exciting.

For the first time since pre-covid a Strandline Beetle has been discovered on the part of Cefn Sidan withing the Pembrey Burrows & Salting's LNR, found by, Alistair, one of our conservation volunteers under one of the experimental Natur am Byth artificial refugia. A truly important find.

A few days later, an almost full team conducted a survey, interrupting other plans as always, within a very controlled area to look for more beetles, disappointedly we didn't find any but this is the way with the Strandline Beetle, it can be elusive from July to early August. The team have an "official" survey planned in  for 18th August so we will have another look, additional volunteers from paid staff in NES welcome - you know who you are !!!

Interestingly the individual found by Alistair was quite dark looking compared to many that I have observed. A French paper contained the following chart highlighting variations, oh and thanks to Alistair for translating the paper.

Careful observations by a local birder, have confirmed the successful breeding of Grey Herons in Pembrey Country Park, I was aware of a successful breeding attempt at this location back in 2020 but hadn't had the time to look since so a huge thanks again.

It certainly seems to be a much better season for invertebrates, particularly butterflies, the regular monitoring of the Pembrey Burrows LNR by the conservation volunteers, whilst still ongoing, does paint a better picture than recent. Painted Lady have been recorded with as many as four seen nectaring together on Sea Rocket and Perennial Sow Thistle

Round up July 2025

 Bore da pawb,

Not quite a round up, more of what has been going on and exciting things to come in the remainder of 2025- hopefully!

The meadows we manage across the county are just passing their peak at the moment with the main meadow at Mynydd Mawr Woodland Park looking particularly spectacular, the problem is a photograph really doesn't show how good they are; you have to be there to see and listen, an array of wildflowers and a host of invertebrates, I could even hear the grasshoppers, my hearing has deteriorated to the point I thought I wouldn't hear grasshoppers again.

There have been some good bird sightings this past week especially at WWT Llanelli, with Wood Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper and Spotted Redshank, whilst at Old Pembrey harbour an Osprey made an appearance during high tide with increasing numbers of Tern species along Cefn Sidan including Sandwich, Arctic and one Little Tern; all signs that autumn , in the natural world at least, is well underway.

I am pleased to say that the plans to protect the Greater Horseshoe Bats at Pembrey Country Park are making progress, albeit rather slowly but we've started the process with the help of the Vincent Wildlife trust, Vincent Wildlife Trust | Conserving threatened mammalswith… 

The planned artificial, Sand Martin, nesting boxes for, Ffynnon Helyg, are due for installation mid to late September.

Dune Tiger Beetle sightings are now up to three this season, not huge numbers but at least I now know where and when to look for them, so next year we can make a concerted effort to survey for them, I also re-found the nationally scarce Isopod, Armadillidium-album, I say re-found it had never gone missing!

Mothing and other things

 Croeso pawb

The recent hot spell have apparently been good for mothing, I was late to the game but did manage two consecutive nights, Saturday and Sunday and was very happy with the modest catch

The best of the bunch were 

July Highflyer

Canary Shouldered Thorn

Marbled Green

                                                                                         

                                                                                                 Sycamore 3rd record for the County

                                                                                                    the red patch on the head is where                                                                                                                         the scales have worn off

Today, Monday, has been spent with colleagues from the council and WWT Llanelli in a useful meeting of minds.

Whilst out on the estuary we saw around 200-300 Curlew, around 100 Redshank, a family of Lapwing and the usual egrets, gulls and geese.