I got a mauling Friday 12th May 2017

I'll come back to the "mauling" in a while, yesterday evening whilst having a late look at the reserve at Pembrey I was delighted to have a close encounter with a Badger.

We know they live on the reserve, we also know they are TB free, rarely seen due to their nocturnal habits seeing one out at dusk was great either a younger male or a female but either way it looked, turned and ambled off into a field.

Badger, Wikipedia photo

Now the mauling, I am carrying on with my Starling project, today using a 40' net as well as traps, when a low flying Lesser Black-backed Gull decided it wanted in on the free mealworms!

She, for on biometrics it was probably an adult female now carries a BTO ring, a wing of 405mm, and a head and bill length of 110.5mm.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

I've got one or two scars although the secret is to wait until the bird lets go of your flesh before pulling away..............

Divide and conquer wednesday 10th May 2017

Today being Wednesday means one thing, volunteer day, when the other three stalwarts, Veronica, Brian and Neil turn out to tackle tasks and "monitoring".

Today we turned our attention to the main entrance area of the reserve, having removed part of the old wire fence a few weeks ago, it didn't take long for cars to be parked on the grassy area when the hard standing is full.

Neil helped out for a while before going off to do a breeding survey for Stonechat, one of the ubiquitous birds of sand dunes and heaths.

Digging in sand is great, however working on the edge of a tarmac road meant we soon found the going a bit tougher than usual but undeterred the replacement fence went in easily and even more satisfying is the fact that apart from any nails, all materials were recycled from "old unwanted waste wood".

Brian hard at work

Finished? I may tweak it a bit more!

After lunch Veronica set off to look for the Strandline Beetle which should be emerging from hibernation anytime now? or not as seemed the case. Brian and I kept tweaking the fence!


Neil had a great time as well as finding eight pairs of Stonechat in the areas he surveyed he also had the following butterflies, SMALL BLUE, GREEN HAIRSTREAK, DINGY SKIPPER and SMALL HEATH, as well as MOTHER SHIPTON MOTHS.

Stonechat ♂

Without the help so freely volunteered much conservation and access work, both here locally  and across the UK just would not happen.

Dry and sunny, the week so far Tuesday 9th May 2017

The dry spell of weather continues, the reserve at Pembrey is very dry and the Green-winged Orchids are not at their best, a spell of gentle rain would freshen the vegetation and breathe some life into the dune flowers.

Butterflies are on the wing, despite the strong winds at the weekend, with SMALL HEATH, and DINGY SKIPPER being new for the year.

Dingy Skipper, there's always a piece of grass in the way!

Despite many species of bird on eggs or feeding young there's quite a bit of song still to be heard through the day especially the scratchy notes of the Common Whitethroat.

Seven new cattle are now in F2, they are still quite curious as some of them can barely see over the fence, but I bet they could jump it if pushed... the over winter grazing in F2 and F3 has benefited the wide range of flowering plants and as the season progresses they will be a riot of colour; we have a few flower walks planned so don't forget to put a note in your diary:

24h June  for summer flowers and 26th August for Saltmarsh flowers.

Quite a lot of work to get on with over the next few weeks keep watching....

I'm getting back into the Starling RAS project I started last year, just need Starlings really.... keep a look out for colour ringed birds in the Llanelli area, below is one of todays birds.

♂ Starling, green ring white letters KBJ

Back in the swing of things Friday 5th May 2017

Well three days back home and well into the swing of things.

The first job was to make the long awaited door for the information shelter, with the aim of reducing some of the rain being blown in on a South Westerly!

I'm quite pleased with the result considering I can't draw a straight line let alone saw one, built, painted and installed.

Quite quiet on the bird front breeding well under way and in the stiff North Easterly/ Easterly of the past few days not surprising that the best birds were two SWIFTS

Common Swift (photo from Wikipedia)

But male Emperor Moth was a nice find, notice the "feather like" antenna, used to detect the pheromone emitted by the female moth

Emperor Moth ♂ (note the large feathery antenna)

Lesvos Spring 2017 summary

The long awaited trip to Lesvos ended on a bit of a high, see last post, and now its time to summarize the week.

We stayed at the PELA hotel in Skala Kallonis, and I hired a car from Tsalis, a local on island business.

We drove around 800km,(540ish miles), the weather was, in the main, unbroken sunshine for the whole week with temperatures ranging up to 27'c and the wind from the North or North East.

In total we saw/heard 152 species plus a wagtail sub species, giving 153 in total; the highlights were.

Teal, Scopoli's Shearwater, Black-crowned Night Heron, Glossy Ibis, Montagu's Harrier,  Honey Buzzard, Long-legged Buzzard, Goshawk, Eleonora's Falcon, Spotted Crake, Little Crake, Collared Pratincole, Temmincks Stint, Marsh Sandpiper, White-winged Tern, Whiskered Tern, Great Spotted Cuckoo, Scops Owl, Bee-Eater, Middle-Spotted Woodpecker, Short-toed Lark, Crag Martin, Red-rumped Swallow, Tawny Pipit, Red-throated Pipit,   Blue-headed Wagtail, Black-headed Wagtail, Nightingale, Isabelline Wheatear, Black-eared Wheatear, Eastern Orphean Warbler, Ruppell's Warbler, Subalpine Warbler, Great Reed Warbler, Eastern Olivaceous Warbler, Collared Flycatcher, Sombre Tit, Woodchat Shrike, Masked Shrike, Golden Oriole, Spanish Sparrow, Ortolan Bunting, Cretzschmar's Bunting, Cinereous Bunting, Black-Headed Bunting.

New Lesvos birds for me were WIGEON, (the remnants of the huge numbers of wintering wildfowl after a very hard winter) and WRYNECK.

Wryneck

As well as the birds we saw a lot of insects, and a host of wildflowers, when there's time they will hopefully be identified........

If anyone is interested in a late September visit to Lesvos please get in touch with me.

French/Italian Alps from 37000ft on the flight home

Lesvos the final day 1st May 2017

Today was intended to be a "mop up day", with Eastern Bonellis Warbler, Audouins Gull and Scopolis Shearwater, the target species.

We stopped off at a well known Bonellis site, but to no sightings only the contact call, so off to Persama for Audouins and a possible Pochard, 100's of Y L GUll and a few Ruddy Shelduck 😞, a little inland 2 HONEY BUZZARDS were compensation.

Honey Buzzard (Wikipedia)

So off to Eftalou and a quick drink in a lovely Taverna where a few Yelkouan Shearwaters and a distant but identifiable SCOPOLIS SHEARWATER skimmed by!

Scopolis Shearwater (Wikipedia)

A drive up on to the coast road yielded a briefly perched, flyby, ORTOLAN BUNTING.

Ortolan Bunting (library photo)

A return to Persama reservoir and still no  Audoiuns Gull.

Packing to be done before the return to WALES......................

A 2 hour pre dinner visit to the Kalloni Salt Pans was well worth it with, perhaps the star bird of the trip, an ELEONORA'S FALCON, chasing, catching and eating a hapless Corn Bunting.

Elenora's Falcon (Wikipedia)

Then followed a chase to find Black Necked Grebe to be disappointed but then rewarded with SHORT-TOED LARK.

Short-toed Lark

I've used a few Wikipedia photographs as I don't have any of my own, I thought non birding readers would like to see some of the more unusual birds mentioned

Normal? service will resume later in the week...

Lesvos day 6 Dizzy Heights and nerves of steel, 30th April 2017

After a very quiet pre breakfast walk, we set off for Mount Olympus, there are quite a few "mount Olympus" in Greece so the Gods were not at home....

On the way we did some botanising, identification of some plants will need to wait for a rainy day at home.

Ophrys minutula, a near island endemic

Crown Anemone

Fritillaria pontica

Eventually we made for the mountain; the track I choose to take was, to say the least, a bit hairy loose gravel and boulders in a 4x4 it would have been fine in out Mervia it was interesting.

The new road to Mount Olympus

After forty minutes of mostly vertical climbing we arrived on the top, which hosts an unmanned military post (all done by electronics) we had amazing views of CRAG MARTIN, ALPINE SWIFT AND SERIN.

After an easy drive down the new concrete road!!! we made our way back to the hotel for a refresh before heading out to the Kalloni Salt Pans where COLLARED PRATINCOLE (1), GLOSSY IBIS (9), SPOTTED REDSHANK (2), DUNLIN,(1) LITTLE STINT (lots) kept us busy before heading to Alykes  for RED THROATED PIPIT.

A quick word with another group had us looking for the last birds of the day in the form of CURLEW SANDPIPER.

Crag Martin photo from Wikipedia