Monday, 17 August 2020

Autumn marches on Monday 17th August 2020

The natural world doesn't follow the calendar as we do, it moves to it's own rhythm and can be evidenced by the birds we consider to be passage migrants, that's to say some arrive for the summer and some arrive for the winter.

I see from the Carmarthenshire Bird Club sightings page that Ospreys have been seen today, origin will be unknown but their destination is likely to be West Africa, probably in the Senegal/Gambia regions were large numbers of them spend the winter and for this years youngsters they will probably spend a few summers there also.

See the source image

Osprey Migration 

Northern Wheatears are another passage migrant that has appeared along the Carmarthenshire coast this week, this bird has one of the longest migrations for a passerine (perching bird), with individuals travelling as far as the Arctic to breed.

Image result for northern wheatear migration routesNorthern Wheatear migration

Sanderling are another bird which travels long distances between its breeding and wintering grounds, of course not all of the birds travel all of the route with many spending their winter on our very own Cefn Sidan, which can have around 1.5% of the world population feeding on the beach, numbers of this "clockwork" like bird have built rapidly in the past few weeks with close to 1000 birds present currently.


Image result for sanderling migration routesSanderling Migration


As well as these long distance travellers there are plenty of great wildlife sightings to be had at the moment, with good numbers of dragonflies including Migrant Hawker and Common Darter on the wing.


Image result for Common DarterCommon Darter





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