Dartmoor and a conference

 Croeso pawb,

What  a week, I spent three days down in Devon on Dartmoor National Park, at a Countryside Management Association Conference. Countryside Management Association - CMA membership is open to paid and volunteer countryside professionals

Held at the YHA Bracken Tor with nice accommodation, good food and meeting facilities.

Around 80 countryside professionals gathered for the annual conference, with day one made up of interesting talks about Dartmoor National Park and the issues they face through to the ethics and practicalities of species reintroduction or reinforcement.

The second day was a field trip with five choices, I chose to look at the work of the National Trust and the Southwest Peatland Partnership, a 10km round trip over moorland and peatbog tested my very dodgy knees and my lungs but I did it.

This link will take you to the project we visited at Great Gnatts Head,                     Where we work — South West Peatland Partnership   very different peatbog to our own in Carmarthenshire where they have maybe 40cm of peat and we have up to 15m of depth!

One of the other options was to look at some Celtic rainforest, photo below.

The final day was another round of talks aimed at visitor management - we all have the same issues lots of different solutions!

Back in work, our contractors at Llyn Llech Owain have started work bunding the peatbog to raise water levels, photos next time.

I may have mentioned my concern with the lack of Willow Tit sightings at the wildlife feeding station at Llyn Llech Owain, pleased to report at least two birds are visiting!

A Snow Bunting has been around on the coast between Burry Port and Pembrey Country Park, always a joy to see.

Snow Bunting -Wildlife Trusts

Visitors from near and far

 Croeso pawb,

What a benign spell of weather, just a shame the sun hasn't shone on Carmarthenshire.

This hasn't stopped good work being done and inquisitive minds satisfied, especially with Halloween activities taking place.

My ranger colleagues led a walk looking for bats at Pembrey Country Park and whilst there weren't big numbers they did manage to "detect" a couple of Greater Horseshoe Bats, (GHB) which is always a great result, GHB's have a really unique echo location sound descried as warbling in nature.

The wildlife feeding station at Llyn Llech Owain Country Park is, as usual, a hotspot for birders and watchers alike, this week myself and new volunteer Alice ran a ringing session from 6am until 10am, with 45 birds of nine species captured under licence; both Alice and myself hold bird ringing licences, with biometric data recorded in return for a nice shiny ring.

We had two particularly good captures, two Redwing,  winter visitors from Scandinavia and a Female Chaffinch which had originally been ringed at a site in Boncath Pembrokeshire on 10th July 2022.

The data we collect is entered into a national database, these are the data sets from one of the Redwing and the Chaffinch.

REDWI   Age  3, hatched in 2024, Wing length 114mm Weight  56.7g Fat score 1 (very little stored fat)

CHAFF   Age 4, at least one year old, Wing length 83mm Weight 19.3g Fat score 0 ( no need to store fat with so much free food at the station?)

Sadly we noted that a number of the Chaffinches we caught were suffering with the Fringilla papillomavirus on their legs meaning we couldn't ring them, after releasing the birds from the nets we disinfected our hands carefully.

The State of Nature in Carmarthenshire

Hi Pawb,

Now there's a headline to get into.

State of Nature reports are produced by Natural Resources Wales, NRW, and Welsh Government, WG. on  a regular basis; so a report focussed solely on our county is to be welcomed.

My friend and colleague Isabel Macho is the author of this recently published report and it is worth an in-depth read, The State of Nature in Carmarthenshire 

Here are some headlines to whet the appetite

(if you click on the image it should enlarge) 

In other news another busy week has been slogged through with the highlight being able to see and hear the appreciation from birders and photographers  that the wildlife feeding station at Llyn Llech Owain Country Park is up and running again for this winter season.

I am so grateful for the donations towards, and of, food to keep the feeders full many thanks.

The feeding station, we call it a wildlife feeding station as its not only birds that visit, under darkness we have Foxes, Badgers and the occasional Fallow Deer calling by; is recognised as one of the easy sites to observe Willow Tits, oddly they have been noticeable by their absence so if you do visit and see these birds please report it on the Carmarthenshire Bird Club website 

Submit sightings - Carmarthenshire Bird Club

The very similar Marsh Tit, illustrated here, has not been, positively, recorded at Llyn Llech Owain Country Park

Feeding station Reopens

 Croeso pawb,

Its nice to be back after a well deserved break, well I thought I deserved it anyway. It was certainly a lot cooler and wetter in Llanelli.

With autumn well underway now its noticeable how many trees still have leaves yet to think about changing to their autumn colours, whilst the Poplars are almost stripped bare the Norway Maple at Ynysdawela is looking superb.

I've had a few enquiries about the feeding station at Llyn Llech Owain County Park, asking if its going to be running this year, well after a man with a strimmer and a gang of eager participants from Carmarthenshire Youth Services I'm pleased to say that the feeding station is up and running.

It didn't take long to attract the birds, and today the photographers and birders are enjoying their antics.

When using the hide please respect other users and don't hog the front row if there's a queue, and certainly don't put up any sort of netting across the viewing slots!

The Wetlands and Estuaries Bird Survey, WeBS, count was very quiet this morning with disappointing numbers at the lakes that I check in the Millennium Coast Park, and at Old Pembrey Harbour, however a Kingfisher at Ffynnon Helyg and another this one hovering, at Old Pembrey Harbour were nice to see as were the 15 Curlew.

End of Season Round up

 Bore da pawb

Just a very quick reflection on the work that has happened during the summer season. It may turn into a bit of a list though.

Lets look at the volunteers first, so since May until the end of September there have been 1472 hours volunteered across the sites managed by the Outdoor Recreation Service. WOW, and amazing number and from a wide range of individuals and organisations including the banking and retail sector, local schools, local litter groups and of course our own ViP's conservation team.

At our Ynysdawela Nature Reserve we have delivered either ourselves or through amazing third party  companies Junior Ranger club, forest school, campfire, dance and writing sessions, river life surveys, beetle and bat surveys with around 120 school  pupil engagements alone.

Our ViP conservation team, have hacked, knocked, dug, counted, painted and made countless other important contributions to the management of our nature reserves.

Personally I managed to dent my new truck ! all fixed now.

We lost and found a river ..... long story but its fixed!

Grass Snakes have done really well at Pembrey Country Park, even taking advantage of the shower facilities!

Swallows and Sand Martins have been caught under licence and ringed what more will be learn of theses long distance travellers?

It's been a tough season for many invertebrates especially the insects, there seemed to be a last minute resurgence towards mid September, will it be enough?

So much going on and so many people to thank.

No Blog for a week or so I'm having a rest.

Equinox tides and Bats

 Croeso pawb,

Another week has drawn to a close although this particular week sees us enter into astronomical autumn, which happened at 1:45pm today Sunday 22nd September 24, of course as I've said previously the natural cycle of life has seen autumn underway since at least mid-July.

As expected with the time of year, there were some big tides this past week and I spent an hour or so early on Friday morning with the rising tide at Old Pembrey Harbour which is part of the WeBS monitoring project, where there was a great mix of birds on show.  

The best of the birds were Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns, Kittiwake, the first Pintail and Wigeon on the marsh and close to 4000 Oystercatchers squeezing onto the tiny areas of remaining sand.

A busy week of meetings and surveys drew to a close when I led a Bat walk at our Ynysdawela Nature Reserve on Saturday evening, we avoided the thunder storms , we were treated with head height Soprano and Common Pipistrelles, a high Noctule and elusive but recognisable Brown Long-eared Bats; a distant calling Tawny Owl pleased those attending.

Autumn is a favourite time of year for many people, including myself, a change of species as wintering birds arrive and a transition from times of abundance to tougher times for our wildlife, I'm sure there will be surprises to be discovered if you get out and about.

New pond

 Bore da Pawb,

Its certainly had a feel of proper autumn with chilly mornings and warm afternoons.

Its been such a full on week I couldn't think what to write about, but weighing up the days its the new pond at Pembrey Burrows LNR that is probably the highlight, well there was a river that disappeared but maybe I'll save that for another post

After far too long a wait, we have finally managed to dig a new pond in the most recent area to be fenced off, now that in itself is all relative as the fence was put in at least two winters ago!

Contractors including a UXO specialist arrived on site at 9:30am, we hit water at around 11:00am after excavating to around 1.7m. We didn't hit anything else either.

If I'm honest I think this will be a seasonal pond but as its primary purpose is to provide drinking water for cattle that's not an issue, the sides of the pond will certainly provide nice sandy habitat for invertebrates, as will the now landscaped area where the arisings from the pond were placed

Since the perimeter fence has been vandalised the contractors will return in the coming weeks to install extra gates and secure the field ready for cattle, at the same time they will replace around 100 fence posts on other fields

As the winter water levels rise the pond will fill and hold water to allow winter grazing.

The arisings have been landscaped and will provide additional pen sand habitat for invertebrates