Prynhawn da Pawb - good afternoon.
I have missed a lot of field work this year, bizarrely I have less time to be out and about now that its my job; than I had when I was a volunteer which now seems like years ago.
This morning I managed to catch the 8.5m tide at Old Pembrey Harbour, in quite nice conditions the heavy rain passing over Gower, did you know its wrong to call it "The" Gower.
A good number of birds species were present with, the usual Oystercatchers, Sanderling, Ringed Plover, a few Turnstones, Black-headed, Herring and Greater Black -backed Gull, Sandwich and Common Terns. it was nice that a couple of local birders were able to show some non-birders the range of birds on show and explain about the transient nature of the tern species.
The birds became quite restless and after a few minutes they all took flight, looking up the reason was very apparent an Osprey was circling overhead, what a sight.
The tides are dropping now but it will still be worth calling down to this easy vantage point to see what's hanging around.
Last week I led a beach safari at Pendine beach, at first looks it was pretty poor, but the 37 people that turned up! soon started to find the common stuff. As the session was winding down one of the youngsters said "what's this?" well that turned into a new species for me, she had found an empty Tusk Shell, Antalis vulgaris.
Wikipedia says....
Antalis vulgaris, commonly known as the common tusk shell, is a species of scaphopods mainly encountered on sandy bottoms from 5 to 1000 meters depth
Antalis vulgaris is a small mollusc of 3 to 6 cm length with a characteristic elephant tusk shape. Its shell is opaque white and displays closely spaced longitudinal striations on the posterior portion. The anterior aperture (thinnest end) is circular and is occluded by a septum with a central pipe bearing a circular orifice.
That's all folks.
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