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Showing posts from July 30, 2017

Beach cleansing Friday 4th August 2017

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After the strong WSW winds and the accompanying rain the Cefn Sidan beach looks remarkably clean with little exposed rubbish. Not sure where the Strandline Beetles are at the moment as "refuges" on the beach are very few and far between. A clean  Cefn Sidan I found another dead Gannet plus quite a few Barrel Jellyfish, I'm often asked "what happens to them?" well from what I saw today a lot of them provide a huge meal for the various invertebrates on the beach such as sandhoppers, there were thousands of sandhoppers on the open beach this morning many of them apparently feeding on the jellyfish The dune flora is, now, perhaps past its best although there are some interesting plants to be found including this thistle, which even when fresh looks dead, its the Carline Thistle. Carline Thistle In the brief morning sunshine I did see a Painted Lady butterfly , h opefully a spell of settled weather will arrive soon, then it w

Wader migration Wednesday 2nd August 2017

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The weather is stuck in a bit of a rut with a run of low pressures rolling in off the Atlantic, bringing wind and rain, this autumnal feeling weather fitted well with the obvious movement of waders on Cefn Sidan today. Several species of waders, with c300 Sanderling, 100+ Dunlin, good numbers of Ringed Plover and two Turnstone were present with the Sanderling and Dunlin in a mix of summer and autumn/winter plumages while the Turnstone were looking bright in their colourful tones. Turnstone, turning seaweed! We drove most of the beach looking for reported bird corpses, as it was we only found two Gannet, one Great Black-backed Gull and an unidentified gull corpses, we checked for rings but none were found. Gannet A new sign at the entrance of the Pembrey reserve should make for easier reading.... and we also looked at the nest boxes for Morfa Berwig reserve so that they are fit for purpose.