Paul's Blog - All comments and views are my own,

With the group ringing at Oxwich this morning and early start, so on site for 06:15hrs to have the nets open just at dawn. Penrice Castle above Oxwich Marsh at dawn A calm morning brought a steady stream of birds totalling at 80 birds processed. Forty one of these were Goldcrest mostly males and mostly hatched this year, the billy bonus birds were two FIRECRESTS, both males hatched this year I called them "jewels of the forest" last week, well this week they were "jewels of the marsh". Firecrest A juvenile Lesser Redpoll was left unsexed, they can be tricky at this time of year. Lesser Redpoll Just before packing up Cedwyn, may co-ringer for the morning< switched two tapes over to Green Woodpecker call and within seconds an immature males was in the middle pocket. Green Woodpecker

With a change of plan this morning I was able to run a ringing session at Pembrey Burrows LNR. I arrived early, around 06:15hrs, an hour before sunrise and set just two nets, a 18m and a 12m, as it was my first visit. A steady stream of birds including Blackbird (2), Blue Tit (8), Great Tit (2), Robin (3), Dunnock (2) Meadow Pipit (4); I was quite happy with 23 birds especially when the forecast "high pressure" rained all over me for twenty minutes. Dawn over the dunes Meadow Pipit

Better weather forecast today and feeling cooler than yesterday by a few degrees. Wednesday is becoming my volunteering day with the volunteers at Pembrey burrows LNR, and so we met at around 10:15am for a bit of fencing and gate installation. How many people does it take to drill a hole in a post Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bird fly onto a fence post, that's a CUCKOO I thought, its 7th of October I then thought! but sure enough a bedraggled juvenile cuckoo was being mobbed by Skylarks and Meadow Pipits. Juvenile Cuckoo No mistaking it........................... In 2014 the last reported Cuckoo  in Carmarthenshire was on June 18th....     There were one or two butterflies around including Meadow Brown, Red Admiral and a rather tatty Painted Lady                                                                                              Painted Lady

With my new ringing site at Pembrey Burrows Local Nature Reserve, approved by Natural Resources Wales, (NRW) and Carmarthenshire County Council (thanks to Dr Simeon Jones conservation officer); I made a good recce of the site this morning. Essentially a sand dune/reed-bed/saltmarsh system with decent areas of scrub, the site holds a lot of promise but will be very weather/wind dependant. Entrance sign Willow and reed bed area View looking towards the North across the dunes and reed bed There was a good variety of birds around this morning, the sky being dominated by Skylarks, with at least six singing birds, Meadow Pipits were very evident highlights though would be Whinchat ♂, Sparrowhawk ♀, Raven and Goldcrest. Very distant Whinchat There were a few plants still in flower including Wild Pansy, Viola tricolour , Burnet Rose,  Rosa pimpinellifolia  Red Campion, Silene dioica  and White Campion, Silene latifolia  with a few Sea Thrift flowers, Armeria mariti

A dramatic change in the weather today as the rain tapped on the bedroom window!, and the wind was blowing from the South West. A day to venture to WWT Llanelli, I haven't been able to visit due to other commitments for a few weeks, and I've missed a Cattle Egret. This morning was autumnal with the wind blowing and rain falling as I walked to the British Steel hide, the sight was again great with 100's of birds on the scrapes. Knot (several hundreds), Black-tailed Godwits, Greenshank (24), Redshank, Dunlin (several hundreds), CURLEW SANDPIPER (2), Little Egret, Curlew, Teal, Gadwall, Pochard, Wigeon, Mallard, LBB Gull, Herring Gull, BH Gull, Swallow (1) Sparrowhawk and then GREAT WHITE EGRET (1), too far away to photograph though. Little Egret, Redshank and Black-tailed Godwit Out on the estuary Great Crested Grebe (c12), and thousands of Oystercatchers. I don't usually pay attention to Magpies but there was quite a smart one (I know I'm being kind)

I spent the weekend back in Swindon, and on Saturday joined my old group the North Wiltshire Ringing Group for a full on ringing session at Hens Wood in the Savernake Forest nr Marlborough. The usual team were joined by Malcolm from South Africa and Charlotte from Canada. Autumn colour is really starting to show through with the reds and golds in the leaves of the trees and shrubs.   A typically early start being on site for 06:15hrs with around 800ft of net put up around the wood at feeding stations and a few carefully selected sites. As expected the morning filled with Coal Tits, Great Tits, with a few Blue Tits as well as the more interesting Marsh tits, the highlight of the tit family though was to catch two WILLOW TITS, a new bird hatched this year and a retrap of a bird hatched and ringed in 2014. With Willow Tits on the brink of local extinction and suffering across most of their range in the UK it was heartening to see that there is still breeding in the are