Summer migrants arriving Thursday 19th March 2020

I've been working from home for a few days and have managed to get out and about in Sandy Water Park.

Very few waterfowl about with only five Mute Swans this morning, a few Gadwall and Mallard. Pochard are down to a single male. 
Two Cormorants were on the "island" both just getting into breeding plumage, note the white neck and thigh patches.

Yesterday a distant flock of eight Sand Martins, my first summer migrant, this morning well over 50 were feeding low over the lake despite the chilly breeze, a single Chiffchaff was calling from the woods.

Sand Martins are colonial hole nesters and have nested in the pulverised ash cliffs around Burry Port for many years, a good place to see them, if you find thye are nesting then let me know

Gulls were present with c100 Black-headed, a pair of Lesser black backed and around 10 Herring Gulls, a confiding Grey Heron near the pub and a Little Grebe.

Please note, during this time of uncertainty, whilst the Country Parks remain open all facilities are closed until the end of May, keep up to date on our website, www.pembreycountrypark.wales

In other news I am on TV tonight, ITV Wales, Coast & Country at 8:30pm? the time keeps changing.

Early Butterflies Monday 16th March 2020

Despite the still very changeable weather butterflies are already making an appearance, a little bit of warmth in the sunny spells is encouraging them to emerge either from hibernation as in the case of Small Tortoiseshell and Brimstone while others will have overwintered as pupae either on the ground or attached to plants tucked away from the prying eyes of hungry birds and rodents.

Small Tortoiseshell

Brimstone

On Friday whilst working with a group of volunteers at the entrance to Pembrey Country Park I happened to glance down and saw the unmistakable outline of a "blue" butterfly.
closer examination revealed that it was a freshly emerged Holly Blue. At the time I just took a photo and warned everyone to watch out for the butterfly, which once shown where it was sitting everyone did.

Freshly emerged female Holly Blue

Thinking it may be too early for the Holly Blue to put in an appearance I did some checking, the records show that it usually emerges in the first week of April!!! so this one is at least two weeks earlier than the average.

An interesting butterfly which has two broods each year the first in spring and the second in summer. The primary foodplants for the larvae (caterpillars) include, unsurprisingly, Holly, Ivy, Brambles, Spindle, Dogwood and Gorse, all of these plants are occur along the Llanelli coastline with the first four in abundance at Pembrey Country Park.

Holly Blue

For those interested in learning more about UK butterflies this is a very useful website,

https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/index.php

Outdoor Recreation Service, who are we part 2 15th March 2020

This blog continues explaining who and what the County Councils Outdoor Recreation Service is

The Millennium Coastal Park, (MCP) stretches from the county boundary near Lougher Bridge along the coastal strip down to the eastern edge of the Burry Port Harbour area, a distance of around 14km. The main attractions along this stretch of coast are the Wildfowl & Wetlands LLanelli Centre,

WWT Llanelli (WWT image)

North Dock Dunes and beach and Sandy Water Park.

However if you visited this area in the 1970's you would seen a mostly heavily industrialised area, nothing like the green oasis that we find today.

Early Industry

Llanelli and the surrounding area grew up and became a place of extreme wealth from the heavy industry and mining over a 200 year period and whilst this brought undeniable benefits to the area, as heavy industry declined it did leave massive scars and industrial dereliction, as has been mentioned elsewhere, the decline was and still is, controversial.  However, the facts remain that Llanelli and Burry Port were left with massive industrial plant that no-one wanted.

Sandy Water Park

It was in early 1986 that the demolition and clearing of the old Duport Steelworks began - it had closed after a bitter battle with the loss of 1,100 jobs, 5 yrs earlier. 

The demolition brought sadness for many residents; the closure dealt a severe blow to the whole area. However, it was clear that, for political and economic reasons, heavy industry was not going to return.

This location was used to create part of the coastal development to be named Sandy Water Park which involved moving over 2 million tons of materials to create rolling parkland, woodlands, a 6ha lake [the base of which was created using pulverised demolition material] also setting aside areas for housing and commercial use.

The creation of the Water Park took almost 3years to complete and was completed under budget.

The Millennium Coast Park attract 100's of thousands of visitors each year not only from the local area but also holiday makers who contribute to the growing tourism industry in the county. The entire area is easily accessible for all on foot, cycle,wheelchair etc; horse riding however, is not permitted in the park.

Some of the lakes were designed to host coarse angling, however fishing is currently only allowed at the Dyfatty pond near Burry Port, (permit required), and is banned at all the other lakes across the MCP in an effort to control the invasive Top Mouthed Gudgeon.

The lakes can turn up interesing birds especially during winter when Long-tailed Duck can be a surprise visitor along with the more usual Gadwall, Mallard Tufted and Pochard, as we enter spring Sand Martins and Swallows will be present in good numbers feeding of the productive hatch of insects not only from the ponds but also the rough grassland areas.

During the summer there are large areas of grassland left uncut, not to save money but to provide a rich and diverse habitat for many insects and plants, these areas will be cut late in the season.

Refreshments can be found at a number of independent restaurants/cafes along the length of the park along with two childrens play areas

I am grateful to Mr Rod James, a resident of Sandy Water Park, for allowing me use of the well researched information on the history of the park.

Part 3 of this topic will look at Mynydd Mawr Woodland Park

For details of upcoming events in the Millennium Coast Park visit 

www.pembreycountrypark.wales

Catch up, New Tools being put to good use 9th March 2020

Volunteers from a Llanelli based group

The work creating a couple of landscaped areas, for pollinator plants, has been progressing nicely thanks to VIP (volunteer in parks) Paul, and a group of volunteers from the Llanelli area, not forgetting some skilful tractor driving by ranger Emyr D, to coax the three boulders into place.

Paul checking my work !

There is still work to be done, but I plan to have all the hard landscaping finished before Easter.

We have been utilizing the tools funded by a Welsh Government grant through the Carmarthenshire Local Nature Partnership. I chose the tools against a few criteria not least being would the tools be suitable to be used by everyone, this involved me actually getting to grips with each of the tools myself, durable but not heavy, assorted sizes of spades, and forks, rakes for different jobs general purpose and specialist saws, you get the idea.

We have created, a raised area on the left hand side of the entrance which will show off the planting to best effect without detracting from the information signage which is being installed to aid first time visitors to the Country Park.

sand/soil mix covered with Terram, 

covered with woodchip

With the exception of the wooden sleepers, which were left over from another job, all the materials including the wood chip mulch were sourced from the Country Park it is satisfying to be able to do this rather than having to buy in and transport materials. We will also avoid any peat based products when we buy in our plants.

Spring, or is it? Monday 2nd March 2020

A belated, Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus, Happy Saint David's Day.

Yesterday was the start of meteorlogical spring, personally I'll wait for the Spring Equinox on 20th March before I get excited. Although nature is showing signs of the changing seasons that's more to do with day length rather than having hit a date in the calendar.

So what have Daffodils to do with Wales, In Wales, the daffodil is a symbol of our patron saint, David, (Dewi Sant in Welsh) and of rebirth and faithfulness because they bloom every year even after the harshest winters.

Daffodil in Welsh is Cenhinen Pedr - which literally translates as Pedr's (or Peter's) leek. The true Welsh daffodil is the Tenby daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. obvallaris, a sub-species of the wild variety. Although it is likely this was originally a cultivated flower it now grows wild across south-west Wales.

Tenby Daffodil (Dr Stuart Blackmore)

It is planned to plant 500 each of both Native Wild Daffodils, and Tenby Daffodils at the entrance to Pembrey Country Park in the autumn of 2020, hopefully resulting in a fabulous display for late winter early spring., There may be a call for help when we get to that job....

Wild Daffodil

With favourable weather, a run of gentle southerly winds would be nice, then we can expect the first migrating birds to start arriving along the Carmarthenshire coast, many will be passing straight through to breeding areas further north, but equally many will stay to breed. Look out for the following  three birds in the next few weeks, and don't forget to call in the office and let us know what you have seen.

Chiffchaff, Northern Wheatear, Sand Martin, 

Chiffchaff, look around the Willow Trees and listen for their "Chiff- Chaff" call

Northern Wheatear (male), look on the dunes and the open grassy areas, 

they have a obvious white patch at the base of the tail

Sand Martin, Sandy Water Park is great place to see these 

sub-saharan travellers

these will be the first then closely followed by Barn Swallow, Whimbrel and House Martin. Of course nature doesn't read books so anything could turn up keep looking.....

Barn Swallow, they will be returning to nest around buildings

Whimbrel, best seen along the coast, 

Pwll and Shoreline beach areas are good spots

House Martin, not as common as they once were 

they will be returning to favoured nest sites on houses.

Keep an eye out for Toads on the move, there are a few hotspots, one of which is the coast road near Burry Port Woodlands where on suitable nights toads will be crossing the road Take Care

Storm update Monday 24th February 2020

Records for rainfall are being broken all over Wales judging by the levels of standing water across Pembrey Country Park and the Nature Reserve we have had our fair share, of course without the devastating impact that other areas have suffered. As reported in previous blogs the most dramatic impacts we have seen are along the coast with our nationally important sand dunes bearing the brunt.

A feature which has come to light with the erosion is the way in which the dunes have formed over recent times, by this I mean that you should look closely at the newly exposed faces of the dunes (keep a safe distance) and see for yourselves the interwoven driftwood, plastic and other manmade objects embedded in layers into the dunes.

For the geology students among you the image is one of sedimentary deposition as the different layers are very clear.

The dunes are usually formed when grains of sand collect against a fixed object, such as driftwood; this catches and holds the sand allowing accumulations to form, eventually forming embryonic dunes, these are low lying mounds which gradually hold  more and more wind and sea deposited sand building into higher ridges, eventually forming recognisable sand dunes. This is usually over periods of 10's of years but can be quicker or slower depending on prevailing conditions and influences.

Removing or burning driftwood removes the ability for faster rebuilding and therefore stabilisation of the embryonic dunes, this is another reason why driftwood should usually be left where it is.

If you have visited Cefn Sidan during the recent storms you will have seen the amount of driftwood and marine debris washed up, especially at the main beach entrance, you may now notice it has disappeared, well we have not buried it, some has been physically moved down the beach to make access safer, although the majority has been moved naturally by the tides no doubt deposited further east along the beach; this is called longshore drift as illustrated.

Wikipedia image

Visitors may well have seen one of our team in a tractor digging away in several places on the beach in  recent weeks, he was not burying anything just the opposite, initially he was uncovering an almost complete Whale skeleton- more on this in the future, he then spent days locating our emergency rendevous point signs dislodged and buried by the storm, seemed more sensible to look for the signs than just buy new ones!!!! 

We must remember that we are dealing with nature, and as such events and outcomes are unpredictable; but if you want to learn more about Cefn Sidan and the dunes look out for upcoming guided events through 2020.

What's on this coming weekend... Food and Drink Festival Saturday 29th Feb' and Sunday 1st March

Storm Dennis update, Wednesday 19th February 2020

The effect of two storms in less than a week are now being seen along the coast.

Monday saw what appears to be a Short-beaked Common Dolphin, recently dead, washed up on the beach, [any marine mammal experts out there let me know if my ID is wrong] and nearby a Guillemot, this weekend one of our rangers, Oliver, will be carrying out the annual winter Beached-Bird Survey, if there is more to report I'll post in a blog.

Short Beaked Common Dolphin?

The occasional storm casualty is to be expected even amongst those animals designed for a life in the ocean as such death is part of the natural cycle of things.

Today however was a sight that I have not witnessed before, probably 100's of thousands of the Common Otter Shell,  Lutraria lutraria, either dead or dying washed up along Cefn Sidan. The empty shells of this large, up to 15cm long, marine bivalve (bivalve= a mollusc having a hinged double shell) are a common feature of the beach so where have all these fresh intact individuals appeared from.

The Common Otter Shell lives buried deep in the offshore sand banks, spending all of its adult life in spot attached to the substrate by a very weak foot, and is susceptible to being dislodged from its hole. It is very likely that the sandbanks have been damaged by the recent storms resulting in this mass stranding.

Common Otter Shell, showing extended siphon

The discovery of the vast amounts of ready meals on the beach as a result of the stranding has resulted in thousands of Herring, Lesser Black-backed, Great Black-backed, Common and Black-headed gulls descending on the beach to pick up a free meal.

Great Black-backed Gulls 

My personal advice is to avoid collecting and eating the shellfish yourselves, I'd rather leave it for the birds.

Elsewhere, there are signs that Spring is nearby, with Lesser Celandine flowering, it's usually one of the first true woodland flowers to appear, the Great Tits making a lot of noise plus my favourite the Song Thrush just getting it's voice back.