Wednesday 24th February 2016

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Fences and corpses....

A glorious morning turned into a glorious day, there was little frost with temperatures at the reserve around 0', the sand was solid but the frost soon lifted.

A quick sea-watch from CE53 on a high tide revealed Red-throated Divers and a Great Northern Diver in the estuary but a long way off,  with lots of gulls feeding on the falling tide.
A walk around the cattle ponds turned up a male Brambling with the flock of Chaffinches, I suspect there are more Brambling in the flock.

The Skylarks were in full song, at one point there were five or six just flying around as we sat and had lunch, (we because on a Wednesday the stalwart volunteers turn up to work on projects in the coastal park, mainly on the reserves) We were fixing the vandalised fencing ready for more cattle to be brought onto the reserve

A visitor had told me that there was a fish or something with teeth was washed up on the beach, further investigation revealed a decomposing sea mammal possibly either a Common Dolphin or Harbour Porpoise
Decomposing nicely a 2m long marine mammal

The flipper was down to the bone and you can make out the teeth

The crows and a Greater Black-backed Gull were tucking into the free meal, but flew off as I approached, there were also two Red Kites circling nearby I'm not sure if they would feed on this carcass?
Also washed up on the high water mark was this Brittlestar, a relative of the Starfish.


Brittlestar, two of the arms have broken off


I also learned of a female Otter being killed, on the main road near a Wildlife Trust reserve about a mile from Pembrey, yesterday, bad enough but she was lactating which means she has at least one probably two cubs nearby, volunteers were going out today to listen for them calling and hopefully rescue them.

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