Beach walk, cattle round up and a list, Saturday 28th October 2017

This morning started with a Snipe count on the lower section of the marsh, still a bit low with only eight birds seen, a bit of cold weather is needed to move the birds around a bit.

I then walked the stretch of beach from the end of the grazing fields to the "Nose", sadly a lot of plastic litter has been dropped on the last few tides, as well as a few more Portuguese Man O' War.

A few Portuguese Man O' War still washing up

Storm Brian, left its mark with a lot of erosion of the dune face, the photograph shows an area we used as access to drive down on to the beach, its a long drop now!

The remains of a small shark, possibly Small Spotted Catshark, looked like discarded bycatch

Some prep' work for a ringing session on Monday morning, will hopefully make setting up easier!, a male Sparrowhawk checked out the ringing ride approvingly, just come back on Monday!!

Through the van window male Sparrowhawk

The grazier was taking the cattle off for routine TB testing, he asked if I could help for a few minutes, 2'5hrs later we all left.... herding cattle is a bit like herding cats, or frogs or any animal that decides it doesn't want to go through a gate and on to a lorry....

All I can say is ..Wednesday volunteers we have quite a few jobs to do, (there's a list) as a result of wayward cattle and cattle lorries!

Oh and I smell of silage and cattle cake?

Winter thrushes Friday 27th October 2017

A ringing session at Pembrey Burrows was definitely on the cards this morning, all looked great even when I could see the stars as the overnight cloud had disappeared.

With just 100ft of net set in some willow scrub and the reeds all was ready by 07:00hrs with the magical "Latvian Redwing" tape playing, I had heard one or two redwing calling in the dark as they flew over, so to find a sprinkling of them in the both nets was justification for the effort.

I caught 11, but as dawn broke it was clear there were 100's on the move one flock alone held c300 birds.

Redwing

The caught and ringed birds were a mix of juveniles and adults, with weights averaging at 61g. There were a few Song Thrush in the bushes but only one in the net, I guess they arrived with the Redwing. None of the thrushes were carrying much in the way of fat, probably having used it up on their journey from the north.

There was also an arrival of Goldcrests, although I only caught four, they were all juveniles with an average weight of 5g - there were many more calling.

The surprise of the session were two  Lesser Redpoll, not caught or knowingly recorded on the reserve previously, again they were both juveniles.

 Lesser Redpoll

[photo from Wikipedia, my camera batteries went flat!]

Nine Reed Buntings added to the total as did a male Blackcap.

Woodpigeons stole the show with several flocks making a total in excess of 1000 birds flying in off the sea and heading north west.

If anyone has empty "fat ball" or bird seed "tubs/buckets" I could do with 12 of them please leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

We are running out of the nature reserve leaflet so I've also been experimenting with QR codes, if you have a QR reader on your mobile you may be able to scan the code and follow the link.

Ynys Dawela Wednesday 25th October 2017

This week the LNR volunteers visited (we did some work) the Ynys Dawela Nature Park (reserve), a 15.8ha former farm,  then in the 1830's and 1840's mining area to exploit the rich mineral reserves of the area.

A failed bid to develop an opencast mine on the land resulted in the site being secured by the local authority and subsequently passing to Carmarthenshire County Council. It is now a real patchwork of meadows, deciduous woodland with the Amman river forming one boundary.

The site is home to a typical mix of woodland birds, yesterday Jays were very noticeable feeding on the abundant Acorn crop, its specialities though are probably the Whorled Caraway, the county flower, and the Marsh Fritillary, although present in low numbers habitat management is geared to conserving this now rare butterfly.

Marsh Fritillary habitat

The autumn colours are just coming out and with the great range of tree species,including Oak, Ash, Birch, Hazel and Holly, plus Field and Norway Maple it will be a blaze of colour in a week or two.