Easter Monday 2nd April 2018

A "day off", a chance to do some admin!

Well a busy week ahead including a talk on the Carmarthenshire Local Nature Reserves on Friday: 7pm.

Felinfoel Community Resource Centre SA14 8BE,

This is a WWW event see www.facebook.com/waleswildlifewatch for details, a small charge applies.

Then the first guided event of the season with a Beach Walk/Safari on Saturday the 7th starting from the Pembrey Burrows Reserve entrance at 10am booking is essential for this (and all our events this year) No charge.

Call me on 07984788218

A report this morning of a SHORT EARED OWL at the burrows around 08:30 - thanks Bernie, there has been a Merlin around in the last few days, and a Great Northern Diver off Old Pembrey Harbour.

A Sea Potato, a burrowing Sea Urchin complete (unusually) with spines

Pembrey Litter- Wednesday 28th March 2018

LITTER, the bane of most sensible, responsible people.
Today our little band picked litter and fly tip from the roadside boundary of the reserve and the "car park" at CE53, Two car tyres, five bags of litter and with not a little irony a pedal bin!

We then picked the grass verge on either side of the main track through the reserve, amongst assorted cans and footballs, we collected 36 bags of dog shit! yes there you have it I've used the S word, because I'm seriously fed up with the lack of respect that the minority of the public, most of whom are "locals", have for our great open spaces.

To me it's simple

YOUR DOG - YOUR RESPONSIBILITY - CLEAN UP AND BIN THE DOG POO.

I'm sure that the council have no responsibility to provide facilities for dog walkers to dispose of Fido's waste, but they do with bins in as many practical places as possible, and frankly I'd rather see my council tax being spent on schools and social care than on a bin for someone's dog poo.

A few days ago at Morfa Berwig I came across this, a Hazardous Waste container, dumped near the roundabout entrance. WHY!

Anyway a spot of stile repairing and fence inspection soon had us in better spirits, it was then off to check a Barn Owl box, well the Grey Squirrels had moved back in after being evicted some months ago, a female,  was duly removed having been dead for some while, a victim of the cold?, along with a mountain of leaves and moss.

Morfa Berwig Wednesday 21st March 2018

At last, today, after an icy start, felt like Spring!

The Wednesday team returned to Morfa Berwig to finish off the task we started last week, (usually the Wednesday team only visit once a month), and did a MAMMOTH JOB which left us, well at least me knackered! THANKS.

It was back to tidying up after the work carried out by contractors, on behalf of NRW, raking the banks of the ditch and clearing debris from the ditch, which is flowing nicely thanks to Brian's engineering works, there's a kid in all of us! Oh we had a little bonfire...

We made neat piles of the brash which will rot away fairly quickly I hope.

With increasing daylight, don't forget the clocks spring forward this weekend, the vegetation will soon take hold, a LITTLE EGRET couldn't wait to investigate our work but decided there was nothing to eat, the obvious birdlife today came in the form of a few pairs of MALLARD and a pair of GADWALL bombing about, a GREY HERON and best off all a GREEN WOODPECKER, possibly a new bird for the site although I'll need to check my records.

Green Woodpecker (Google free to share)

You will have seen that I often use photos kindly permitted by Colin Dalton, if anyone has photos that they feel I could use at some time I'm always happy to share, of course I can't pay but will always acknowledge the source.

Our next Local Nature Reserves event is a BEACH WALK, on the 7th April at PEMBREY BURROWS, booking essential 07984788218

I can reach it ..honest!

Winters return - doesn't stop the summer migrants Sunday 18th March 2018

Today was the monthly water-bird survey or WeBS which I'm sharing with Simeon.

In bitterly cold weather, with a stiff NE wind I was joined by Ed from WWT to survey the section of Cefn Sidan from CE59 to Tywyn Point.

Despite the change in the weather there were a fair smattering of birds on the beach with total counts of the following:

COMMON GULL c1000, OYSTERCATHER 1637. SANDERLING 792, KNOT 160, REDSHANK 12, CULREW 30, BAR-TAILED GODWIT 3, GREAT BLACK BACKED GULL 24, HERRING GULL 75, COMMON SCOTER 100'S, GANNET 1, SHELDUCK 18, CORMORANT 7.

Sanderling, winter plumage (Colin Dalton)

Knot winter plumage (Colin Dalton)

There was also one Northern Wheatear, (a few reported in the county today), and a movement of Meadow Pipits to the south, (in response to the cold snap?)

Northern Wheatear male

Spring - hold on Friday 16th March 2018

A pre-dawn set up at Morfa Berwig, in good conditions after last nights very heavy rain; produced just nine birds, not a great return for the effort, even the tits were absent.

The star bird was the first CHIFFCHAFF of the season, to be expected really with c10 singing males across the road at WWT yesterday, hopefully the site will resound to their monotonous song soon.

ChiffChaff

The absolute wildlife sighting this morning was made by Ed, from WWT, when a TOAD walked across the path in front of us.

Toad

It is hard to believe that a "wetland" site such as Morfa Berwig appears to holds so few amphibians other than PALMATE NEWTS, but now with a clump of frog spawn last week and todays Toad sighting there's at least some evidence that they occur, (the same scenario occurs at WWT).

Morfa Berwig LNR, Wednesday 14th March 2018

A working party visit to Morfa Berwig with a list of jobs to tackle,

Clear debris from part of a recently exposed ditch

Put in two stiles to make access for monitoring (and less ripped clothes)

Check the artificial Otter holt

Continue removing an old fence

Well we managed 3 out of the 4 tasks, ably assisted by an extra helper in the form of Tim.

The ditch had been cleared of bankside vegetation for two reasons, namely to aid the movement of water and reduce the flood risk, and improve useable habitat for the water Voles.

The contractors have done a grand job and it was a case of just tidying up what we could, which involved raking the floating debris from the water and the bankside debris into piles.

This will allow the bankside vegetation to regenerate providing cover and food for the Water Voles, the banks are quite "soft" so burrowing shouldn't be a problem.

Before we started

I think another session next week will see the whole stretch of ditch cleared of floating debris and the bankside raked with the small piles moved into larger piles for burning.

In the throes of the work

To be fair Brian and I only joined in after putting the stiles in,

most of the work was done by Veronica, Neil and Tim,

but someone had to pose for the photos

What a difference, with the water running nicely and already clearing,

just the top section to tackle next time

Morfa Berwig ringing Sunday 11th March 2018

A ringing session this morning at Morfa Berwig was interesting in so much as there were few birds around especially tits, my theory is that first thing they were busy establishing territories, singing, looking for nest sites etc, and generally getting into breeding mode before going off to feed.

The food in the feeders has hardly gone down in the last few days so I'll be thinking about stopping the food if the weather sets in mild.

The small catch was varied with, BULLFINCH, GOLDFINCH, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, GOLDCREST, WREN, BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, BLACKBIRD AND COAL TIT

One of the Blue Tits was a very smart adult and had a good smattering of pollen on its plumage especially on the forehead, clearly the Willows are flowering and it had been poking about in the flowers.

When extracted from the net the patch of yellow on the forehead was very obvious,

the pollen has brushed off with handling.

Several of the Dunnocks were showing signs of being in breeding condition with the cloacal protruberance ( the reproductive bits) swollen,

THERE WILL BE A RINGING DEMONSTRATION AT MORFA BERWIG (weather permitting) on Thursday 12th April, 8am - 10am booking essential