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

This morning I joined in with a beach litter pick, organised by the local Wildlife Litter Pickers group aided by employees of both Carmarthenshire County Council and Natural Resources Wales, on a little visited stretch of Cefn Sidan. I say little visited because we were on the Pembrey Sands Air Weapons Range which is off limits to the public Monday - Friday when it is being used for bombing and gunnery practise. A reminder of where we were! The recent storms seem to have left most of the rubbish covered by sand but there was enough for the 25 strong band of litter pickers to do.  Most of the "litter" was in fact discarded fishing net and rope although hard plastics and plastic bottles filled quite a few of the recycling bags amongst the  bags of landfill. With most of the rubbish moved off the beach,  even this end of session photo shows a lot of fishing net debris There has been a concerted effort around the coast of Wales in the past week to

A late and unexpected opportunity to make an autumn visit to the Greek island of Lesvos was not to be missed. So it was that we arrived, at the HOTEL PELA; late on Saturday 15th to night time temperatures in the mid 20's. The hire car was provided by local company TSALIS with their usual efficiency. Sunday morning, and every subsequent morning dawned clear with rapidly warming temperatures reaching around 30'c on average but with a few hours of 32'c before cooling down to the low 20's. The wind, was at times brisk from the NW which did little to cool the temperature but was still refreshing. Having visited Lesvos at this time of year I was prepared for the challenge of finding birds, which is much harder than in the spring however a respectable 77 species, including some specials, was achieved. The highlights of the trip were DALMATIAN PELICAN, with a max of 14 seen;  GARGANEY, PINTAIL, SLENDER-BILLED GULL, BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER, CURLEW, LESSER SPOTTED EAGLE, C

Weather is incredibly hot 32' again today. A decent list of birds and other wildlife beginning to accumulate. No proper blog until I return as I am running off my Samsung Tablet.

Unfortunately I have had to cancel the guided event on Sunday 16th September; I am planning on rearranging the event to a date in October. P

September is a great month, autumn in its many guises is getting underway as nature begins to wind down for the approaching winter. Most of the flowers along the coast are now setting seed, the shrubs and trees are fruiting, many with an opportunity to provide us with delicious food such as Blackberries for a pie, Hips and Sloes to add to alcohol, Elder berries to make that wine [get a good reference book and get making]; remember to leave enough for the wild creatures that will rely on this bounty to see them through the winter. Elder Berries Sloes (the fruit of Blackthorn) Birds have long been on the move especially the summer visitors such as Swallows, and Sand Martins. some birds will be arriving from the north to winter with us especially the wading birds such as Sanderling or even the scarce Curlew Sandpiper. Sanderling Curlew Sandpiper A walk across the dunes at Pembrey Burrows LNR could turn up any odd birds such as Whinchat departing for Africa or a

Well, I'm not looking for sympathy but what a long tiring but great fun and great teamwork the weekend has been... Tour of Britain Grand Depart from Pembrey Country Park, a wheelie great success (get it). G   (photo Pembrey Country Park FB page) My small part was to set up the nature table in the marquee, and to lead two guided walks, a beach safari and a woodland walk. Nature table, the large item on the left is an un identified whale skull It was great to have an interesting mix of people join me for both walks, the strandline safari was tough with little of interest on the beach, just as well I did a recce in the morning, but plenty to see on the way to the beach (it took 30mins to walk from the visitor centre to the beach!!) I tried to get the message across that the county has so much countryside and coast to explore, with the park being a unique blend of natural and manmade habitats, mentioning the now considered misguided approach of stabilising the dune

The natural world does not follow the same calendar of time as we humans do, nature has it's own intricate calendar and now at the end of August the "natural autumn" is well underway. The meteorological autumn starts on Saturday 1st September, whilst the astronomical autumn will start on 21st/22nd September. This is easily evidenced by looking at the increasing numbers of birds which come to Carmarthen Bay, and specifically Cefn Sidan and Pembrey Burrows, to spend the winter. The gull numbers are building up with good numbers of COMMON GULL, BLACK HEADED GULL and HERRING GULL using the fields in the country park at high tide; the SANDWICH TERN roost at Old Pembrey Harbour reached 171 birds yesterday evening, (before being disturbed by a big green canoe). Along the beach SANDERLING, RINGED PLOVER, DUNLIN and TURNSTONE are to be found chasing the tide. A juvenile MARSH HARRIER was recorded by Bernie Beck this week- thanks Bernie. More significant, although harder to s