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

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, wh

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 f

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, controve

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

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 Nat

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 al

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 i