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

A pre-dawn set up at Morfa Berwig, in good conditions after last nights very heavy rain; produced just nine birds, not a great return for the effort, even the tits were absent. The star bird was the first CHIFFCHAFF of the season, to be expected really with c10 singing males across the road at WWT yesterday, hopefully the site will resound to their monotonous song soon. ChiffChaff The absolute wildlife sighting this morning was made by Ed, from WWT, when a TOAD walked across the path in front of us. Toad It is hard to believe that a "wetland" site such as Morfa Berwig appears to holds so few amphibians other than PALMATE NEWTS, but now with a clump of frog spawn last week and todays Toad sighting there's at least some evidence that they occur, (the same scenario occurs at WWT).

A working party visit to Morfa Berwig with a list of jobs to tackle, Clear debris from part of a recently exposed ditch Put in two stiles to make access for monitoring (and less ripped clothes) Check the artificial Otter holt Continue removing an old fence Well we managed 3 out of the 4 tasks, ably assisted by an extra helper in the form of Tim. The ditch had been cleared of bankside vegetation for two reasons, namely to aid the movement of water and reduce the flood risk, and improve useable habitat for the water Voles. The contractors have done a grand job and it was a case of just tidying up what we could, which involved raking the floating debris from the water and the bankside debris into piles. This will allow the bankside vegetation to regenerate providing cover and food for the Water Voles, the banks are quite "soft" so burrowing shouldn't be a problem. Before we started I think another session next week will see the whole stretch o

A ringing session this morning at Morfa Berwig was interesting in so much as there were few birds around especially tits, my theory is that first thing they were busy establishing territories, singing, looking for nest sites etc, and generally getting into breeding mode before going off to feed. The food in the feeders has hardly gone down in the last few days so I'll be thinking about stopping the food if the weather sets in mild. The small catch was varied with, BULLFINCH, GOLDFINCH, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, GOLDCREST, WREN, BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, BLACKBIRD AND COAL TIT One of the Blue Tits was a very smart adult and had a good smattering of pollen on its plumage especially on the forehead, clearly the Willows are flowering and it had been poking about in the flowers. When extracted from the net the patch of yellow on the forehead was very obvious, the pollen has brushed off with handling. Several of the Dunnocks were showing signs of being in breeding condition with