Wednesday 2nd December 2015

Wednesday is volunteering day with the Millennium Coastal Park Volunteers, today we were at Pembrey Burrows LNR.

The weather turned from mild and overcast with a steady breeze to wet and windy and quite a blow.

It was a good job I found my waterproof over-trousers yesterday and put them in the car, shame I didn't stop to put them on.

There are contractors on site clearing the invasive Sea Buckthorn from the fore-dunes, they are using some heavy machinery to clear the Sea Buickthorn and are cutting and "mulching"  as they go then the area will be sprayed with a Glysophate in the spring to clear any new growth.

This smaller machine with a hammer flail is used to clear the hard to reach places

As dramatic as this may seem the Sea Buckthorn is not native to Wales and occurs naturally only along the East coast of the UK, in order to maintain the dunes in as natural condition as possible the plant does need controlling.

Not much left when the tracked machine has been through

We drove to the corner of F2 where the fence is in danger of disappearing into the sea as a large stretch of dune has been swept away in the past few months, its going to be a bit of a job with 42 posts needed to make the field secure.....

Tuesday 1st December 2015

Another breezy overcast with drizzle but mild sort of day.

An afternoon visit to the beach (Cefn Sidan) at Pembrey LNR and a litter pick, mostly discarded fishing rope and plastic, and bizarrely some lemons!!

The rough seas have thrown a lot of litter onto the beach but it is now mostly covered by blown sand,

with lower tides (8.7m) the high water mark is lower and cleaner but still plenty to see including the following.

Trigger Fish Balistes carolinensis

Common Jellyfish Aurelia aurita

Bladder wrack Fucus vesiculosus

L-R Oyster spp Common Cockle, Prickly or Rough Cockle spp

Monday 30th November 2015

Storm Clodagh is blowing its way through this morning, with high tide due at 08:50hrs a visit to Pembrey Harbour was in order. The site opposite the eastern end of the Pembrey reserve although separated by a tidal inlet a large part of the reserve is visible from the harbour.

A JACK SNIPE along the top of the old harbour wall was a surprise then a RED BREASTED MERGANSER ♂ in the inlet, I was joined by Adam Dare who told me that he had just seen a SWALLOW near his home, unbelievably as we chatted I looked at the Merganser again and spotted a SWALLOW battling the wind as it flew low over the inlet towards the marsh.

This is a late date for Swallows, so was this bird, and the bird Adam had seen earlier, scooped up in the run of storms over the past week and totally blown off course??

The next hour produces OYSTERCATCHER c700, RINGED PLOVER c60, DUNLIN c20, GREAT BACKED GULL 10, GREAT CRESTED GREBE 1,

I then went over to the entrance to the reserve and walked around F3, picking up SPARROWHAWK ♂, and a RAVEN.

Just outside the reserve boundary checking a flock of gulls, I picked out a BLACK HEADED GULL with Darvic ring VH21, along with over another 100 BH Gulls and COMMON GULL 95.

Black Headed Gull, with White Darvic engraved VH21

Sunday 29th November 2015

Technical issues with loading photographs solved???

Lets see........

possibly problem solved