Paul's Blog - All comments and views are my own,

Brrrrrr..., a bit nippy even when you dress for it . However being the hardy souls that we are on a Wednesday we set out to fix yet another part of the fence in GF3, carefully watched by the five boys, 406 is the brave one quite nosey really. After banging in four new posts we set off to check another length of fence, apart from a few staples needed it was secure enough. A couple of Golden Plover flew in low and landed on the marsh, an unusual sight for us, they usually fly straight through, some Lapwings and a few flocks of Skylarks hinted at a cold weather movement. We left Pembrey for the Millennium Coastal Park, more specifically the PWLL Lagoon LNR where we put in a new boundary sign, in "easy" digging it was soon in, and looking good. Easy digging Is it deep enough? It is level!!!!!!! Well I did dig most of the LH hole

Contractors, working on behalf of Natural Resources Wales, are on site at Morfa Berwig carrying out some ditch and Willow clearance, so needed to be let in this morning, I also topped up the feeders before "the blizzard" arrives on Thursday, and.....checked the camera trap that I put out yesterday evening. BINGO, check the bottom right hand side of the video for a very brief view of an OTTER, the river froze yesterday and it looks like the Otter came along the bank not through the water as anticipated but you know what I DON'T CARE, I got an Otter on film, now starts an opportunity. After that morale boost it was off to a Carmarthenshire Nature Partnership meeting at WWT Llanelli, an interesting networking opportunity as always. I made copies of the guided events available which were well received. After lunch some of the meeting debunked to Morfa Berwig for a walk around, some of the group hadn't visited before and those that had were impressed with

This month is nearly over,  know it's a shorter but still its flown by. This morning, in a stiff easterly I joined the great team from mencap Cymru to install a sign recognising the important and ,much appreciated , work that they do along the coast here in the Pembrey and Llanelli area, carrying out a huge amount of litter picking and helping with other tasks such as fencing and putting in signs. A few of the mencap volunteers said, "I hope people read the sign and don't drop litter.. ." I checked the cattle, which are looking good, being mostly Welsh Blacks and a few Hereford crosses they are all very hardy and are not phased by the colder weather, with plenty to eat and their drinking ponds full and not frozen (it's too windy) they all seemed quite content. Well the forecast "beast from the east" is beginning to make it's presence felt what will the rest of the week bring.............

What a fantastic if chilly day, a brisk walk around Pembrey reserve this morning in glorious sunshine. Nine Lapwings flying east were new for 2018, not much else going on apart from the Orienteering event where 100's of brightly and bizarrely clothed individuals were determinedly running in all directions through both the country park and the reserve, I used to do orienteering myself when I was younger and fitter.....I know hard to believe but true. I spotted a few random twigs in a Poplar tree at the bottom of a neighbours garden yesterday and a Carrion Crow lurking nearby, last year they nested in a Cherry tree in another garden. Today I found the actual birds responsible for the construction, a pair of Magpies, they seem optimistic, I'm going to try and document the building of the nest and share the videos on the blog. In the meantime a few facts about the Magpie, Pica pica , a member of the Corvid family some of the cleverest birds on earth. An opportunistic

This morning was the first time since November that I have had the opportunity to ring at one of my own sites. I visited Morfa Berwig with Edward one of the Gower Ringing Group trainees and set just two 40' nets around the feeder site. Given the number of Blue and Great Tits in the area it was no surprise that they dominated the catch, however quality soon arrived in the shape of a WILLOW TIT, already ringed and re encountered once before this is the juvenile bird hatched at WWT, its fair to say we were happy with trapping the bird which was in great condition. Willow Tit A couple of rounds later we were pleased to see a "thrush" in the net, as I went to extract it there rather surprisingly was a REDWING, although not carrying any fat it felt in reasonable condition. Redwing The next round brought smiles as a Greater Spotted Woodpecker was in one net, then to top it Edward shouted that there was a "big bird" in the other net, in fact there wer

I know I know, some of you don't like change!! Apologies but I've changed the "theme" of the Blog, this design allows you to subscribe to email alerts whenever I post a new page, I don't always post on Facebook and Twitter ( and some of you don't do Facebook or Twitter)so I thought having your own personal link would be nice. It should be straight forward, I have tested it out myself, just click on "subscribe" and enter your email address, when you receive a confirmation email, Check your junk or spam box, follow the instruction, all in all it takes about 2mins. Although it says "subscribe" it costs nothing. I am getting around 1100 hits a month so thanks.

So yesterday we visited Ynys Dawela Nature Park near Brynaman. It's a really interesting site so look out for the guided events there in the coming months, see yesterdays blog!. I thought we were going to knocking things down, always fun, but no we were tidying up what had already been knocked down, eh oh still needed doing. We did start by putting the metal noticeboard in place on the new Oak sign looking good... It was good to see a decent mass of frog spawn in the pond as well as a few clumps in the nearby ditch, it's likely that the onset of the cold weather may kill off much of the spawn which is a shame but that's nature for you. Today despite it being my BIRTHDAY, I went and filled the feeders at Morfa Berwig, I will get around to ringing there soon I hope. It was good to see the ringed Willow Tit already at the feeders when I arrived accompanied by what seemed every Blue and Great Tit in the district. Worryingly I found some mammal prints that may b