Entrances part 2 Wednesday 10th January 2018

Wednesday is volunteers day as you must all know by now, so accompanied by my stalwart colleagues Brian and Veronica, Dan from Keep Wales Tidy and the boss we tackled finishing off the "new" entrance to the Morfa Berwig reserve, oh hang on I forgot the boss went off for an onsite meeting with Isabel our biodiversity officer and Hillary from Natural Resources Wales (NRW) , I'm sure it was important!, (It was, its what partnership working is all about)

Anyway the entrance looks great, and I've come up with a little project, to monitor the colonisation of the bare ground over the coming months and manage the verge sympathetically, again partnership working so we'll wait and see.....

just waiting for the LNR sign to be made and installed

There's a lot of mud around so we undertook sweeping and shovelling the surfaced path, (tarmac) and improving the vehicle turning area in the centre of the reserve...keep off the mud.....

A party of 50, yes 50 ramblers, rambled through the reserve as we sat having lunch, great to see the reserve being visited even if it was just a "shortcut"

Hillary, a biodiversity officer from NRW, pointed out a well known Otter sprainting point, with fresh spraint,which led me to point out the route it takes across the track, an opportunity for the trail camera?

Otter spraint

The actual spraint found was a little older than this photograph shows, being dryer and greyer in colour, and easily overlooked.

Looking out for tracks and signs is really interesting and rewarding as it allows you to "see" more of the creatures which are elusive or nocturnal, a good book if its in print is Collins guide to Animal Tracks and Signs.

Fences and entrances, Tuesday 9th January 2018

It's all go at two of the LNR's this week, with a replacement fence being installed at Pembrey Burrows LNR, and a second go at creating the right type of entrance at Morfa Berwig LNR.

At Pembrey, the post and rail is being constructed from Chestnut, a robust long lasting timber, replacing the rather serviceable but now unsightly, and in need of repair, post and wire fence. The new fence will help showcase this wonderful reserve to the general public.

It served a purpose

The old post and wire fence

The new fence under construction

At Morfa Berwig radical changes have been made to the roundabout entrance with a complete re-landscape, necessary to ensure the entrance is as secure, whilst pleasing on the eye, as possible there are approx' 9 tonnes of concrete blocks, and 30-35 tonnes of soil and rubble used in the construction of the entrance!!!

out with the old "new"

I was in awe of the driver, he is amazingly skilled with the machine,

moving 2tonne blocks to within  c3cm of their end location (I measured it)

Almost there......

A few hours work with the Wednesday gang will see the entrance complete! Watch out for the photo in the next blog.

It looks very bare at the moment but give nature a few months and we may be surprised to discover what plants were lying dormant under the dumped spoil and brambles.

Bee Orchids, along with Southern Marsh Orchids grow along the verges of the A484, so it would not surprise me at all if we see Bee Orchids appear on the disturbed areas, maybe not this year but in a few years!   I feel a project coming on here, monitoring the verge!

What does it all mean, Monday 8th January 2018

I quite often refer to SSSI's, LNR's etc and a few people have asked what do these mean, so I've collected together the terms most associated with the reserves in Carmarthenshire, especially Pembrey Burrows LNR, which has all of the designations attached to it.

A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSI's are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I"

Local nature reserve (LNR) is a designation for nature reserves in Great Britain. The designation has its origin in the recommendations of the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee which established the framework for nature conservation in the United Kingdom and suggested a national suite of protected areas comprising national nature reserves, conservation areas (which incorporated suggestions for Sites of Special Scientific Interest), national parks, geological monuments, local nature reserves and local educational nature reserves. LNR's are designated by the local authority who must have a vested interest in the site chosen, either by owning the site or having entered into a partnership with the landowner, 

A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora. They are to protect the 220 habitats and approximately 1000 species listed in annex I and II of the directive which are considered to be of European interest following criteria given in the directive. They must be chosen from the Sites of Community Importance by the State Members and designated SAC by an act assuring the conservation measures of the natural habitat.

A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certain particularly threatened birds. Together with Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), the SPAs form a network of protected sites across the EU, called Natura 2000. Each SPA has an EU code – such as our own Burry Inlet SPA which is code UK9015011

^{So there you have it, all pretty straight forward!, well of course it isn't and a lot depends on partnership working, engaging and managing expectations, there is very little money for "on the ground" conservation these days which is why management has to be prioritised accordingly, not only to ensure the best use of resources but also to protect the natural and cultural assets without creating more liability to be managed.}

^{Carmarthenshire has a number of strongly supported, organisations such as the Carmarthenshire Nature Partnership and Carmarthen Meadows Group, who work to share best practises, plus the LNR and Biodiversity team's, who are professional conservationists and land managers with the best interests of the counties natural places at heart.}

Morfa Berwig Tits Friday 5th January 2018

With the planned nest box project at Morfa Berwig it would be useful to ring as many of the adults using the reserve before the breeding season, this may help build a picture of pairs and breeding success. 

There are a lot of tits visiting the feeders which I have set up in a quiet part of the reserve, ideal for ringing.

Here are a few videos of the busy feeders.

Willow Tit calling

Mixed tits

Ducks Waders and the Bird Report Thursday 4th January 2018

We are lucky along the Llanelli coast to have a decent amount of wader suitable habitat, the world renowned Burry Inlet, an SPA for a range of water-birds, The Wetland and Wildfowl Trust centre at Penclacwydd, North Dock, and the Lliedi saltmarsh Llanelli Beach, Cefn Padrig, Old Pembrey harbour and of course Cefn Sidan, although the conservation protection designation is Pembrey Coast, undoubtedly many other areas such as Machynys have lost some of their attraction due to development, so much of the area has some form of designation, in fact if you plot all of the Pembrey Burrows & Saltings designations onto an ordnance survey map it's impossible to read the thing, ask if you want to try it!

This brings me to the point of the blog, it's noticeable from records of 2017 that numbers of some duck species are down, with Pintail and Wigeon being very noticeable, not only are birders telling me this but I speak to quite a lot of wildfowlers, (no matter your personal view these people are not all bad) who are noticing fewer duck numbers; I think the data provided to the Carmarthenshire bird report will prove useful in tracking this perception. What is the view out there?

Pintail

Ok that was a bit gloomy lets talk waders, in 2017 21 species of wading birds were recorded at Pembrey LNR, not bad if I tried harder we may have added a couple more, of course the beach helped. Here are a selection of photos, courtesy of Colin Dalton, Thanks Colin.

We have produced the first ever PEMBREY BURROWS & SALTINGS LNR BIRD REPORT, for 2017, I will publish on the blog? and it will be available as a hard copy if anyone wants one. It's not a fancy one but I'm often asked for a list of the birds we see so it seemed like a good idea.

Storm Eleanor,Wednesday 3rd January

Wednesday = volunteer day,(that's to say I get backup today to do more than one man jobs) and so it was no storm was going to stop us getting stuck in to some fencing repairs, it's a bit like painting the Forth Bridge just when you think you've done its time to start again.

It was certainly gusty at times but nothing to really affect us working, however the effect on the dunes is very evident, we have lost a fair bit of dune frontage at the eastern end of the reserve, what is eroding is being blown back over the top and drowning the cattle fence.

The blighters could step over this as it is

Repairs made (it's not pretty even by our standards) but for how long....

Now try it.. or rather don't ...

The cattle, a mixture of heifers and bullocks, mostly Hereford types but some mixed parentage; are looking well and are certainly tough enough for the coastal conditions, they showed great interest in the vehicles as we drove through the field today, something we rarely bother to do, the bullock which is un-polled looked pretty determined to stop me in my tracks, you know like the David Attenborough films of Rhinos eyeing up the trucks.......(he's not in this photo)

A look for Owls didn't pay off today perhaps a combination of huge tides and the strong winds has moved them to dryer parts of the reserve.

Colder, dryer weather forecast could be great for Owls and Harriers, so come and visit and please report your sightings.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Carmarthenshire Local Nature Reserves

Hello 2018, Pembrey LNR was very busy yesterday, certainly for the short time I was there, I couldn't wait to get away, but I'll come back to that.

Disappointedly the New Year started with reports of poachers on the reserve, they were duly intercepted and the error of their ways pointed out to them, to be fair they were both very reasonable guys and I had a good chat with them about the reserve the issues we face and the wider countryside in general.

All the cattle looked well and were in the right places, but I've spotted a couple of potential problems which will hopefully be resolved tomorrow.

After  being growled at by a rather unruly dog and its companions running loose AGAIN! I thought it time to go for lunch, great idea I had not taken into account the total arrogance of a particular visitor who had blocked the barrier (appropriately the owner of said dogs!), with the help of more considerate visitors I managed to weave my way passed, but of course the Toyota pickup, an ambulance or coastguard vehicle would not have managed.

Well that was yesterday, so today it was Morfa Berwig reserve and a spell of road sweeping and ditch clearing... don't worry Wednesday gang there's still plenty to do.

I did not see a soul but found time to watch, a WILLOW TIT, and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER as well as the usual assemblage of birds along the Afon Goch.

Great Spotted woodpecker