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

With overnight wind and rain, the morning was still a bit damp and blowing with a westerly wind, the rain had petered out by the time I arrived at the Pembrey reserve. I did a couple of quick jobs, including counting the new contingent of cattle now in residence in grazing field 1, 16 present and correct. With high tide around 0920 I wandered over to the end of grazing field 2 and did a bit of sea watching. In amongst the 2000+ Oystercatchers I found the leucistic bird that Bernie Beck had seen on 9th March, an odd but attractive looking bird in shades of brown and white, hopefully it will hang  around for tomorrows guided event. Also on the beach were 100+ Bar-tailed Godwit, 35 Sanderling, whilst offshore,  four Great-crested Grebes, a handful of Cormorants and Common Gulls. As I looked eastwards into the estuary I saw a long,pointed winged greyish bird in the gloom flying towards me, as it got closer the dark cap and pointed bill could only be one, likely, bird

I was on site at Pembrey LNR at 05:30hrs for a ringing session, it was a cold slightly frosty morning with sunrise at 06:40hrs, I was concerned that with, limited opportunity to ring in 2017 due to bird flu restrictions and poor weather, that my numbers would be significantly adrift to 2016. How the memory fades it was as tough at the beginning of 2016 as it has been in 2017 and I'm only 10 birds down. Reed Bunting ♂ Quite a lot going on today, sign boards to be weatherproofed, "wildlife breeding season" advisory signs going up, continued improvements to the information shelter, the cattle being taken off by the grazier for TB testing and new  Herp' refugia to put out around the edge of the marsh. Ready for the off An impromptu meeting with "the boss" and the job list grew.......great to share ideas and be on a similar wavelength. What was a decent enough afternoon, weather wise, gradually turned cold and very foggy; however wh