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

Winter raptors..... With autumn marching towards winter there has been a noticeable increase in the avian predators on the reserve. Whilst we don't get big numbers of raptors we do have a nice range of species using the reserve and already the following can be found with a bit of time Kestrel, at least two different individuals. Sparrowhawk, the "big" female is back and quite often a smaller male and female can be encountered. Common Buzzard, one or two usually seen around the first cattle enclosure to the north of the track. Merlin, a nicely marked immature male has been around for a few days and showed well this evening. Immature ♂ Merlin, ( heavily cropped photo; donations towards a decent camera welcome!) Peregrine Falcon, a couple of regular birds, especially at high tide when they hunt the wader flock Red Kites should reappear soon, as well as Goshawk and Hen Harrier, just keep looking... Barn Owl, check near the Dwr Cymru

A mix of Summer and Winter..... I made a late afternoon visit to the reserve, as it was my first opportunity for a few days, the light was quite nice with a mix of dark heavy clouds inland and crisp clear blue skies out in the bay. I made a quick stop at pond 2 and was pleased to find, at last, Four Northern Shoveler, the first record for 2016 on the reserve making them species number 136, they were all female and didn't hang around long but only flew to the pond in the next enclosure. there were also five Teal, and two Pintail nice numbers of nice duck on what is almost a puddle sized pond. I walked out to the eastern edge of the dunes and was pleased to find that the seasonal brackish pools have retained a lot of water after the high tides, it is clear that birds, probably ducks and waders, are using the pools (lots of preened feathers). its a long walk to get to this area :-) Making my way back to the information shelter two Barn Swallow flew overhead