Thursday 22nd October

Today is a relaxing day after a few busy ringing days, it amazes me whenever I go out and find another great wildlife site.

Today we went to "Swiss Valley " reservoir, (yep that's what the area is called), unusually for most reservoirs I have experienced apart from the outer dam wall all the internal shore walls are covered with vegetation, albeit mowed to an inch. 

There wasn't masses of wildlife but Great Crested Grebes 5 inc 1 juv, Cormorant, Heron, Mallard on the water; with Grey Wagtail, Coal Tit, and Goldcrest in the overflow runoff and surrounding woods.

the babbling brook

Field Maple

Swiss Valley reservoir

After a great pot of tea at a nearby garden centre it was back to Sandy Water Park for a stroll around the lake, my first for several weeks, it was high tide so quite a few gulls loafing on the grassland including two Mediterranean gulls, Common Gulls and Black -headed Gulls. There were 15 tufted Duck and only 39 Mute Swan.

Mediterranean Gull

Chicory or Blue Sow thistle I'll have to look closer next time!

Tuesday 20th October 2015

This morning I joined Charlie at Oxwich NNR for a ringing session with thrushes very much in mind.

Another dry cool autumn morning saw us on site at 06:30hrs, we immediately put the mp3 players out with Redwing on two nets, Crest on another and Woodlark (they have been seen in the area this week).

The First round delivered a few surprises firstly 13 Redwings and a COMMON SNIPE in one set of nets, nothing in the "crest" net and in the third a Song Thrush and a JACK SNIPE.

What a first round....

Common Snipe and Jack Snipe for comparison

Jack Snipe

Common Snipe

Jack Snipe after being released, they usually just sit on the ground pretending to be invisible

it flew off after a minute or so

We carried on for a few more rounds and caught seven more Redwing, and  11 Goldcrests along with a mix of other usual fare.

Monday 19th October 2015

The forecast is set for a change in the weather, so I decided to go to Pembrey Burrows LNR and try out another site (site2) in some willow scrub/reeds

The weather was calm and overcast when I set up and stayed that way until the end of the session.

A Magpie was a surprise in the first round then more usual fair of Robin (1), Wren (3), Reed Bunting (2), Chiffchaff (2), Goldcrest (1), Chaffinch (1), Dunnock (1), Blue Tit (2).

Robin age 4



What wing is this and what age would you assign

Sunday 18th October 2015

A trip to WWT Llanelli this morning, with high tide (7.6m), at 09:45hrs saw a lot of waders on the outer scrape,

Black-tailed Godwit (673), Knot (600+), Greenshank (22), Spotted Redshank (2), Lapwing (11), Great Crested Grebe (60+) on the estuary, Redshank, Curlew, Peregrine (1), Water rail (1), Kingfisher (1),

This afternoon I attended a Llanelli Naturalists society Fungi walk at Pembrey forest.



Pale Tussock Moth caterpillar



Despite the lack of rain in these parts for the past few weeks there was a decent showing of species.



The Sickener



Russla sp