a productive morning at local nature reserve

We decided to go somewhere we haven't been for a while - our local South Wales Wildlife Trust nature reserve.
There was some blue sky and sun. Cloud was building up while we were there.
It was lovely to see bird feeders along the fences next to the footpath and every so often when no-one was around the birds were feeding. Surprisingly male and female Reed Buntings! Wow, I haven't seen any of these for some time! I used to get them in my back gadren when I was a child. An absolutely stunning bird associated with wetlands. 

 

An unmistakable, cracking, male Reed Bunting, often heard singing this morning.

 

This is the female Reed Bunting. Best photo I could get today. Notice she does not have full black head or grey plumage. She is more brown, again, and more streaky.

We arrived at the first hide overlooking at very large pool. Canada Geese were present and a Tufted Duck which evaded a photo. Yet right in front of the hide, in the water, was a gorgeous Little Grebe, later joined by a second one. 

Little grebe

 

Canada Geese.

After taking several photos of the Little Grebes, my husband called me to see a pair of Grey Wagtails also in front of the hide. These are also stunning birds. I got quite excited and carried away taking photos of them. Never been so close, that's why!

 I have made these photos of the Grey Wagtails larger on the blog as I think they deserve it and you can truly appreciate them.

Out of the hide and while continuing our walk around part of the reserve, we were alerted to a group of 8 Jays. Flying around together they were squawking and even singing once they landed in the trees. I've never heard a Jay's song before. It was quite unusual but sweet. Not the best photo here. And I only managed this other shot in flight (below). They are members of the Crow family but obviously much more colourful. A lovely pink plumage with black and white wings, a patch of blue, white-ish face and a white rump which is seen in flight. Also when flying they have quite rounded wings, with 'fingers' (very end of wing tips) usually open like below. 

                            

3 Buzzards were soaring above us and the reserve too, calling occasionally. I love Buzzards. Well, I love all birds of prey.  This is usually the only time I can get a decent photo of a Buzzard - in flight.  Still, a lovely sight. See below.

Meanwhile, down on the ground, my daughter and husband spotted a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly. Very colourful.

 

We saw masses of primroses in one shaded area growing around trees. 

Around the reserve we heard several singing Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs. Not long migrated in they are now sussing out the territories.

Willow Warbler

 

Willow Warbler

Some Great Tits followed us around -  look how bold the black central line through the yellow breast is. Black head, white face, and green-ish coloured back which is not seen here.

And finally before getting into the car I heard a glorious little song which I knew straightaway that it was a Dunnock but did not see it immediately. It was closer to me than I thought. Still, it posed and sang long enough for me to take its photo. They are members of the Sparrow family but clearly different to our House Sparrows. Their other name is Hedge Sparrow implying that is where they usually favour. They have a grey head, neck and breast and brown backs.

                                     

Dunnock.

Well, what a busy little place. If you are new to birding and looking for wildlife, it's a good idea to go to a nature reserve as they usually have a wealth of information as to what could be found there, and have a variety of habitats providing food and shelter for a variety of wildlife. 

Enjoy.

a day at the caravan and coast

A glorious day here in South Wales today. Slight cool breeze, even more so on the shoreline.
My family and I went for a couple of walks  in the vicinity of our caravan on the north Gower coast.
The tide had gone out leaving a huge bay exposed of lovely clean, wet sand, shallow rock pools and hardly anyone around.
The first walk to the bench that overlooks the bay gave us views of many Herring Gulls, a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, a Great Crested grebe, on the sea, and a Gannet, which we often see.

 

A distant record shot of the Gannet in the centre. An amazing sea bird. Very large, white, yellow head, black wing tips, dives into the sea for fish.

After this, a wander around some farm buildings , near fields of sheep and a footpath leading to some dunes, adjacent to the beach providing a small wooded like area,  produced Long tailed Tits, Great Tit, a few Chiffchaffs, a singing Wren, Meadow Pipits flying over, a Rook and a distant Red Kite. There is a lot of lichen on the trees and bushes in this area too.

Also a few queen bumblebees and a Peacock butterfly sunning itself on the grass.

Peacock butterfly

 

Lichen 

 

Adult Herring Gull - pale grey back and pink legs are what you need to look for to identify this bird. 

After lunch in the caravan we went separate ways. My husband and son went on a big circuit of a walk through fields overlooking marshland and rejoining the coastal path back alongside the beach and sea. They saw 3 red kites that seemed to be hanging around the sheep fields. Sheep were lambing and Red kites are scavengers and would only take the after birth as food.

 My daughter wanted to go rock pooling so I was the assistant and photographer! 

We saw some very distant Sandwich Terns, always a delight to see but I hope we can see some closer in the bay soon as they pass through our coastline.

In the rockpools we found many periwinkles, and some small fish that we always see and cacth in a bucket called Shanny, or Goby, see below. We're not 100% certain which species these are below but feel free to enlighten us. 

 

A Kestrel flew over the beach too, see below. 

 

 

And then we found 2 strange creatures we have never seen before. Worm like creatures in the wet sand  - one white, immediately above and the top photo of a green caterpillar like sea creature. Again, if anyone can enlighten us as to what they are. We have a very simple beach ID book here and they don't seem to be in it and can't find anything like it online.

 

On our return there were 2 Carrion Crows pecking around the rock pools on the beach. With the sun on them their plumage is very glossy black. These birds are larger than Jackdaws and smaller than a Raven.

I hope you have the chance to explore a beach. You'll be surprised at what you can find. 

Enjoy.

 

overnight moths

Not many moths overnight. 3 species, 6 individuals.
Hebrew Character, Early Grey, both macro moths, and new for the year Common Plume which is  a micro moth, Latin name Emmelina monodactyla.

 

Early Grey on the wall. 

 

Common Plume (Emmelina monodactyla)

a trundle in the car to...

...a nearby estuary and river late afternoon. The river Ogmore runs inland from the beach and rivermouth at Ogmore-by-Sea.
There was an incoming tide, weather conditions were calm, cloudy, and some rain was on the way. We stopped to look at a field, next to a restuarant, which usually floods every winter and a patch of water tends to remain for some time. This attracts some wildfowl and the occasional migrant bird.
 Today there were a small number of Teal. A small, very colourful and striking duck.Of course that is of the male. The female is....you guessed it - brown! This is the case in most birds, that the male is more colourful than the females.
I managed to get a photo of a female Teal next to a female Mallard, another duck species and probably the most common one people see and know, so you can see the difference in size. 

female Teal in foreground, female Mallard behind.

There were a couple of pairs of Mallard around the field and water's edge too. Here is a male and female, below.

Luckily, I then noticed a pair of Teal right in front of me (above). The male is on the right. They were constantly moving and did not oblige by sitting or standing in a better position so this photo does not do the colourings and markings any justice. I tried. When taking photos I always aim to take a record shot first then try to get better with each subsequent photo.

So the male Teal has a lovely rich red-brown head with a green almost crescent shaped mark over the eye and face down towards it's back. Grey-ish on the back, buffy-cream speckly breast,  a black and white stripe on it's upper side and an obvious creamy-yellow patch on it's rear end.

 

One or two Meadow Pipits were flying around the field. Very tricky to get sight of but I did find this one that briefly landed by a puddle (above).

 

A colourful make Chaffinch was up high in a tree near the car. Will try to get a better photo next time I see one. These are quite common, often seen in gardens, woodlands and parks. 

 

There were a clump of Primroses near the river bank.

 

We followed a footpath alongside and overlooking the river, heading upriver. Again this usually attracts a lot of birds in the winter. With spring migration and the breeding season nearly here a lot of birds have moved on. However many Mute Swans (below) remain and a pair Canda Geese (above).

 

If you live near a river go have a stroll around and see what you can find. Different habitats have different wildlife. Enjoy.

micro moth

My daughter, again, with her eagle eyes spotted this little creature today.

 It's a micro moth. Micro moth ? Yes. There are over a thousand species of micro moths. Micro being the giveaway - they are tiny. The other moths that I posted recently are collectively known as macro moths, being larger. Micro moths are usually millimetres in length.
This one we believe to be a Leek Moth and was flying around this afternoon, landing on our window. As the name suggests its food plant is leek, onion and chive and is a known pest.
The majority of micro moths have Latin names but luckily a lot have English names too. You soon get to know them if they occur regularly in your moth traps.

There are several reference books to identifying micro moths. The best one by far is similar to the moth book I linked to recently ;  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0956490212/ref=s9_simh_gw_g14_i5_r?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=1NRSQ29SB533FV0Z87E2&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=867551807&pf_rd_i=desktop

Similar to macro moths, a lot are brown in colouring and others are very colourful with varying markings. Some species even migrate from the continent in the right weather conditions and time of year. 

As the season progresses you will get to see a wide variety of macro and micro moths that we trap.

Please note and remember that we trap for recording purposes only. We send our records to local county recorders and usually participate in the National Moth Night scheme every year. All records are compiled to ascertain the state of Britain's moths and therefore eventually find ways to help protect and recover species at risk of extinction.
For more information please look at :-

http://www.mothnight.info/www/

http://www.mothscount.org/

by the coast today

I went to our static caravan today, on the north Gower peninsula, to get it ready for the new season. Torrential rain stayed until early afternoon. The tide was on its way in and therefore plenty of surfers and paddle boarders in the sea and no sea birds except a scattering Herring Gulls further out in the bay. 
There is a fantastic coastal path leading around the headland and winding its way through old sand dunes from long ago, part of which overlooks a smaller bay and beach. A bench overlooks these bays and the far off estuary. 
After the rain, and lunch, my daughter and I walked to the bench to see what was around. We saw some hirundines - a collective name for the groups of House Martins, Sand Martins, Swifts and Barn Swallows - flying around fast and high and I couldn't see any colouration. Light conditions were poor. We looked out to sea - nothing. As we turned to head back more hirundines came over us and this time I managed to get them with the binoculars in slightly better light. They were Sand Martins. 13 of them in total and proceeded to head inland and due east. More spring/summer arrivals. Lovely to see. To think they have travelled such a distance....phenomenal.
Around the caravan however we did hear and briefly see 2 Long Tailed Tits, Skylark, Dunnock, House Sparrows, female Blackbird pulling up grass and mud for nest building and 2 Pied Wagtails.

 The above 3 photos are record shots of the Pied Wagtails. Such a gorgeous, bright black and white with grey. 
Below is the female Blackbird collecting grass and mud. Note how she is brown. The male is black with a yellow-orange bill (beak).

 

On the way home I saw 3 barn Swallows flying over the road and farmland, presumably also  just arrived from the continent.

Well, as we use our caravan throughout this season, until October/November, I hope to bring you a whole load of wildlife sightings from there and show you just what our part of the Gower, in Wales, has to offer. Please keep reading, following and enjoying. And lastly, get outside and explore - see what you can find, even if in your garden or along a path.

bat, moths, blackbirds, pool and sea front walk

Busy morning! But first of all I had one bat briefly over the garden last night at dusk. It didn't stay for long and I did not have time to move the dial on the bat detector. First one of the year though, for the garden, and I think it could have been Soprano Pipistrelle bat. I will check again over the next few nights.

Moth trap was out last night. It was still cold but we caught 14 individuals of 4 species, one of which was new for the year  - Small Quaker. Other species trapped were Hebrew Character, Common Quaker and Early Grey.

 

Small Quaker

I came in from the garden and watched from the window for several minutes. The Blackbirds got my attention. There seems to have been 2 males around for some time now, quite often fighting. But at one point there seemed to be more of a stand off and a threat to each other. Both sat on my neighbour's fence, one was still and the other one was pacing up and down towards the still one, as if pushing his luck and limit. While this was going on the female was in our garden rummaging in the garden pots and troughs, having a lovely feast and then on the grass. I suspect they could be nesting nearby or at least getting ready to nest.

After breakfast, as a family, we decided to go for another walk in the Porthcawl area, kids with their scooters in tow. We stopped at the Wilderness Pool that is surrounded by footpaths and a few small wooded areas. There seemed to be a lot of activity and birdsong this morning. We heard Chiffchaff straightaway and as we tried to find it we saw a potential Willow Warbler, another spring migrant to the UK with pinkish legs and longer wings than a Chiffchaff. We were right, after watching it flit from branch to branch. Another one was spotted in a willow bush in the lake doing its very best to find food. 

  

Willow Warbler

As we continued our walk around part of the lake there were Goldfinches calling from the tree tops, Blue Tits and Great Tits, Robin and Dunnock. Clumps of Bluebells were in full flower and fresh green leaves on trees. A secretive Treecreeper was also spotted, crawling up the tree trunks. 

Bluebells

 

Robin 

Treecreeper 

On the pool itself were 2 immature Mute Swans - we can tell this due to their brown-ish colourings on their wings, head and neck which fades as they mature - 1 adult Mute Swan, 2 Canada geese, several Mallards (ducks) and hybrid ducks with ducklings, Coot, Moorhen, 2 Herring Gulls and 1 Jay heard and a Crow at a nest.

Coot

We headed to the sea front for a walk and kids' scooter rides. Quieter in terms of bird life but on the grass land and bushes of Lock's Common were a few pairs of Stonechat, Skylark and Meadow Pipit. Always a lovely sight from these 3 species with lovely songs and calls.

Also 4 Linnet and 4 Greenfinches flying around the bushes, of which the gorse is practically in full flower.

female Linnet

Gorse 

On our return to the car along West Park Drive we managed to spot a flock of Turnstones on the rocks with the incoming tide. But always look carfeully at flocks of birds as you never know what other species are in with a specific species flock. Here we found 3 Purple Sandpipers with the mobile Turnstone flock. I did my best with my camera and 400mm lens!

Purple Sandpiper

Turnstones

In flight here are the Turnstones with Purple Sandpipers. If you look carefully you can see most look the same (Turnstones) but the Purple Sandpipers have different wings markings and are generally darker. You can also compare with the 2 other photos above.  Purple Sandpipers are usually found during the winter months on our rocky shorelines.