Big moon big tide

The first properly chilly day of the autumn with a NNW breeze at 18mph, clearing skies and huge vistas of Carmarthen Bay.

With the "hunters" moon of the last few days, the tides have been impressive, thankfully without an accompanying storm, the dune face has taken a bit of a battering this autumn.

The strandline was covered with weed, including some Kelp, the associated plastic and  Portuguese Man o'War, although mostly just the "sail" and no tentacles.

There was a recently dead Guillemot washed up, it was an adult which had clearly struggled to feed as the breast bone or keel, was prominent which indicates muscle wastage, there were no rings on the legs, its good to check no matter how decomposed the corpse may be check every dead bird for rings, which are usually easily removable especially when there is good decomposition. Sadly many ringing recoveries come from dead birds but the information gained is invaluable to the study of the movement, health

and longevity of many species.

Along the track to the shelter a roving flock of birds held a Chiffchaff, Long tailed Tits, Blue and Great Tits Robin and Reed Bunting.

GUIDED EVENT MORFA BERWIG

SEE BELOW FOR A WALK AT THE MORFA BERWIG LOCAL NATURE RESERVE BOOKING ESSENTIAL

TAITH GERDDED - GWLYPTIROEDD YR HYDREF AUTUMNAL WETLANDS WALK Croeso i bawb / All welcome Ymunwch â ni am dro hydrefol o gwmpas Gwarchodfa Natur Leol Morfa Berwig a darganfod rhai o hud a lledrith y cynefin gwlyptir hwn. Darganfyddir y llygoden ddŵr prin ac byddai’r system gwlyptir hwn ar un adeg yn cael ei gweld yn y tir isel o Bynie i Llanelli. Mae’n addas ar gyfer pob oedran. Ffoniwch 07919 592 683 am fanylion pellach ac i archebu lle ar y daith gerdded. Join us for an autumnal walk around Morfa Berwig Local Nature Reserve and discover some of the magic of this wetland habitat. The reserve is home to the rare water vole and this wetland system would once have been widely found in the low lying land from Bynea to Llanelli. Suitable for all ages. Please call 07919 592 683 for further details and to book on to the walk.

Gwarchodfa Natur Leol Morfa Berwig Dydd Iau 16eg Mis Tachwedd 1300 - 1500 Morfa Berwig Local Nature Reserve Thursday 16th November 1300 - 1500 I GADW LLE: PLEASE BOOK: Sldjones@sirgar.gov.uk 07919 592 683 Bydd eisiau esigidau cerdded a dillad addas Please wear walking boots and outdoor clothing

Morfa Berwig ringing Friday 3rd November 2017

With the last day of settled weather forecast I headed to Morfa Berwig LNR and set just 140' of net, two with sound playing, and one without.

As hoped for there was a smattering of Redwing in the first round with a couple of Song Thrush.

It was clear that there were good number Redwings flying over, but not as many as the huge flock of Starlings I saw flying in the far distant, an estimate would put the flock size in the high thousands.

A  couple of steady rounds and  then a hectic one saw a total of 49 birds processed, 43 new and 6 re-encounters, including a bird ringed by another ringer.

The reason for the hectic round was a small influx of Goldcrests and the interception of what appeared to be a  mixed roving flock .

Male Bullfinch, aged as a 3 as it still had a few retained greater coverts

I am grateful for the assistance of Veronica who "scribed" for the session, taking the pressure off processing and writing. Scribing is one of the most important jobs during a ringing session as the information gathered needs to be recorded accurately, they are also a great check when the ringer reads the ring numbers!

The morning looked like, Bluti-9, Goldc-9, Redwi-8, Lotti-6, Greti-4, Robin-3, Bulfi-3, Sonth-2, Dunno-2*,  Blabi-1, Coati-1, Trecr 1

* one of the Dunnock was a control bird, ringed by the Gower Ringing Group at WWT Llanelli on 1st June 2017, as a bird of the year 3J.

A surprise landing Thursday 2nd November 2017

After a full on day with the Wednesday team, who by the way did a great job on the information shelter, THANK YOU it looked good this morning!, I returned at dusk to set up  for a Skylark ringing session this morning. whilst sorting the final net set, two Common Snipe landed in a net I had already set out, by the time I got to the net one had wriggled out but the other was lying quietly and was extracted easily, (for a change).

I took the nets down, just leaving a marker pole as a guide for this morning, so much easier to prep the night before, and set about the task of processing the bird.

Common Snipe Biometrics  Adult BTO code 4

                                         Wing  132mm

                                         Weight 91g

I returned hopeful this morning but ended up with very few birds, not a Skylark in sight, in perfect conditions, still I had nothing better to do at 05:30hrs.

Tomorrow's another day!

Nest boxes Tuesday 31st October 2017

After a quick trip to Pembrey to measure some fences, I collected more nest boxes for the project at Morfa Berwig.

I have placed 33 boxes in the wet woodland (carr) around the reserve at Morfa Berwig, another 11 to go up but the area I've selected looks a bit of a jungle challenge so I'll set some time aside to tackle them.

We had a good deal on the boxes, some of them are a bit fancy for the purposes of a survey but good quality and at a third of the retail price I can't complain.

Twelve of the boxes are supported by Bynea Primary School and have been individually marked with the names of the pupils who selected the random numbers; Isabel the county Biodiversity officer has set the pupils some challenges over the winter period all connected with the project, hopefully it will give them a fuller understanding of the natural process of life, and death.

No 19, Bynea Primary School 

The new "telescopic" ladder worked really well to place a box at height (hopefully for Spotted Flycatchers to use), the other boxes are at a workable height so negating the need to carry a ladder around when checking them in the spring.

I've doctored one box to try and encourage Willow Tits to use, these birds are very fussy and prefer to excavate their own nest hole in a rotten trunk, so I've covered the box in bark and filled it with sawdust and wood chips we know that there are Willow Tits on site as I caught one a few months ago.

Willow Tit box?

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.