Venus Pools & Polemere

Myself and Brian Pollard took a trip over the boarder to Shropshire today, to a couple of nature reserves that I hadn't visited before. The weather was great and the birds were equal to that. Around 40 species were seen, and highlights were:-

Venus Pools
1 drake Mandarin, 10+ Teal, 20+ Shoveler, 2 Wigeon, 200+ Greylags, 7 Great Crested Grebes, 1 Lillte Grebe, 200+ Black-headed Gulls, 2 Common Gulls, 3 Lesser Black-backed gulls, a handful of each Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer, 1 male Peregrine, 1 Male Goshawk, 2+ Sparrowhawks, 2 Grey Herons, 30+ Lapwings and 10+ Snipe.

Polemore

A family of 5 Whooper Swans, 1 redhead Goosander, 2 Little Grebes, 2 Wigeons, 10+ Teal, 75+ Greylags, 50+ Canada Geese and 1 Barnacle Goose.

Little Gems.......

A couple of very showy Goldcrests made my lunch a very enjoyable one today.

Birding in Cyprus

Myself and Char went on a very long overdue holiday to Cyprus last week, although it was a none birding holiday, I was quietly confident that I would manage a few decent birds, and hopefully some that I had never seen before!


Birding started off a little quiet around the hotel and surrounding area, with only just White and Yellow Wagtails being the highlight of the first day! However the second day way a lot better when a walk along the coastal path produced a Crested Lark, Alpine Swift this stunning juvenile Red-backed shrike, things were on the up!





Day 3 was a none eventful day on the birding front, but day 4 produced some more gems!! We had hired a car, and were on our way to the capital for some site seeing, when on the way I spotted a small lagoon on the side of the motorway, this proved to be an absolute wader magnet! Species I.D'd included Teminck's Stint, Kentish and Little Ringed Plover, Black-winged Stilt Spur-winged Plover (pictured below) and a few commoner ones too. Garganey, Hooded Crow and a Greater Flamingo were also present there. A Chukar was seen on a eveing walk not to far from the hotel.








Day 5, as we still had the car we took a trip up to the Troodos Mountains - the highest mountains on the island. I was hoping to see some large birds of prey soaring on the thermals, but sadly none were seen. However the forests were full of little birds including several Common Crossbills and Short-toed Treecreepers and a couple of Cyprus Wheatears, amongst several commoner species. Half a dozen or so Bee-eaters were seen on the way home.





Day 6 was a relaxing day, but a early morning walk along the beach produced 3 Zitting Cisticolas and a juvenile Red-rumped Swallow among a handful of Swallows and Sand Martins.





By the end of our holiday I had managed to I.D 40 species of bird including 7 world lifers!!

Lapland 'Hunting'........

I was given the very privileged opportunity yesterday evening to try and catch some Lapland Buntings. In recent weeks there has been a huge influx of these winter visitors to many coastal areas of Britain, in some cases more than 10 times the usual number of birds!! The plan was to 'drag net' (a technique used by ringers to catch ground roosting birds) the fields where the birds had been seen in the daytime, in the hope that some of them were still there roosting. After about an hour of methodically walking up and down the field trying to cover as mush of it as we possibly could, we had successfully caught 3 Lapland Buntings and 7 Skylarks (another ground roosting bird). Adding to the other 4 Lapland Buntings that Tony Cross and Kelvin Jones had caught on another 2 trips, meant that a total of 7 Lapland Buntings had been trapped and ringed at this one site!! Amazing really, as only 17 of these birds have been ringed in Britain over the last 4 years!!

April fools....?

A trip with Tony (to the coast again), but this time to to some bird watching as well as ringing!! One of the first birds we heard/saw was a Cuckoo!!

We couldn't believe it, it was the beginning April and one had already turned up, so much for not arriving until May. Maybe this was going to be a great start to a great days birding? It was, the next bird we saw was a Great Grey Shrike, this was going to be some day! After spending a few hours at the Cross Inn Forest we headed to the coast, where our good fortune continued, several Wheatears were present on the cliff tops, one of which was trapped and ringed, but star of the show here was a Black Redstart which wasn't shy at all (there was a very showy Dunnock too).

We then headed up the coast where our first stop was Aberaeron, we were greeted by a very smart flock of Golden Plovers (and a lone Turnstone).

A bit further up the coast we ringed a brood of Dippers, then got to our next location - Llanrhystud. Here we saw good numbers of White Wagtails a handful of Wheatears and second summer Med Gull. On the way home we decided to go the mountain route where the star bird for this leg of the journey was a Merlin which decided to have a pop at a Wheatear right in front of the car!!

Off to the coast again....!

A quick visit to the coast (Aberystwyth) again today, with the main target to try and get some more pics of the Purple Sandpipers, before they head off north for breeding!

I was in luck a couple of them were feeding on the rocks below the old college, so with a bit of careful tip toeintg over the wet rocks I managed a couple of pics before they went and fed a bit furter out!

This Shag in the harbour was also a nice find too!

Also got to ring my first grey herons today, what ugly little b****rs!!

White-fronted Geese @ Dolydd Hafren

Many years ago White-fronted Geese used to build up to as many as 400 strong in the fields along the monts/shrops boarder, nowadays due to increased farming there natural wintering habitats have all but disappeared along with the Geese, so to hear that 3 had turned at one of my now 'local' site, I was keen to go and see them!

When I got to the reserve, the 3 birds were showing distantly but well enough to clearly see what they were.



Other birds of interest included, 4 Little Ringed Plovers, 2 Redshank, 2 Common Sandpipers, 1 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatchers, 40+ Curlew, 13 Goosanders, 2 Cormorants, 80+ Fieldfares, and a handful of each Swallow and Sand Martin.

Green with envy...

With a lot of Green Woodpecker activity going on in Nantmel lately, myself and Tony decided to try and catch one. We knew where they had been calling from so just had to set up a net and hope for the best! The first site we tried wasn't very successful, so after a short while we deiced to try another place - where they had bred some years ago.

With in a short while of setting up the net the female had thrown herself into it, and it seemed only a few moments later that the male was in the net as well!!

What a catch, and what made this more amazing was the fact that these two Green Woodpeckers are possibly the first ringed in wales since 2006!!

Owls about that.....

This evenings 'task' was to try and catch a Little Owl. Little Owls were very common in wales some years ago, but are now only hanging on in a few small pockets around the country. Fortunately Tony knew of a pair that were on the welsh coast, so off we set to see if they were still around. We arrived at some old farm buildings (a classic place for Little Owls), we the set up the net, and waited (and waited). Nothing was happening, Tony reckoned we were too close to the net, so we disapeared out of site for a few minutes, went back to check the net. Not one but two Little Owls trapped in the net, what a result!!





This one had found somthing tastie on Tony's and, probably a bit of left over Mac Donalds!!!

Swan or two...

With the winters catch coming to an end myself and tony wanted to finish on a high. We knew of a place where a small handful of Whooper Swans gathered most years, so after a poor catch wader dazzling we decided to give it a go as we had nothing really to lose.

After a long trek we reached our destination, we got out of the car, had a quick shine of the torch and we couldn't believe our luck, a small family Group of Whooper on a smallish lake. We went down to the waters edge, on opposite side of the lake and tried to usher them down to a shallow part of the lake where one of us could wade in and grab a Swan. After some very clever noise distraction from me and what seemed like an age of time we had ushered the swans to place where Tony could reach them, I could believe my eyes Tony had manged to grab one of the juveniles.








We had a half hearted attempt to try and catch another, but these guys were on to us now and weren't playing ball, be we weren't complaining.

Not satisfied with one we went back the next night to try our luck again, this time with a canoe. To our delight the swans were still there! I managed to draw the short straw and had to get in the canoe, hard enough to do in the day time let alone at night! It couldn't have worked out better within in a short while the swans were in a prime location and tony pounced! I couldn't believe it, he'd managed to catch an adult.

Amid all the excitement I had forgotten where I was and managed to capsize the canoe (quite a scary thing being stuck under the water in the dark and freezing cold!!), after what seemed like an age, I managed to get out and somehow drag myself and the canoe to the edge. It was at this point Tony looked up and asked what I was doing, great!! We tried again to catch another but once again they were on to us, but we weren't going to complain with the catch.

Who's a pretty boy then....?

A visit to the lake at luinch time today proved to be very rewarding, not only was it very sunny the birds were showing very well too. Mr Mandarin was strutting his stuff,



and so were the Grebes.

Ringing Woodcock...

With the moon making the nights very light at the moment, the only option is to get up at silly o'clock before work to try and catch Woodcock. So at 4 o'clock this morning myself and Tony set off to Crychan! When we got there the wind was very strong (and cold), so we didn't really get up ant hopes of catching many, if any at all! So we were both very pleased with a catch of 5 from a possible 27 birds! Well worth getting up for!

Tawny Owls....

1 adult male trapped and ringed this evening in Nantmel.

'Knot' a bad night....

After last nights poor catch of just 4 birds (Dunlin, Golden Plover, Oystercatcher and Redshank), at Ynyslas, we were determind to give it another go. What a good decision that was, after an hour or so walking through fields catching only 1 Woodcock, we decided to head for the beach where we caught 1 Dunlin, 4 Redshanks and 3 Knot (2 of them in 1 net!), which was a new ringing species for me, wahoo!! Jsut before we left we had a quick stop at 1 more field were we caught 2 Golden Plovers (both in the same net), a nice end to the night!

Stuck on the farm...

After an unexpected heavy snow fall in the night, my plans to go out putting up bird boxes came to a holt when I couldn't get the car up the lane!! Luckily there's always something to see on the farm. This weekend is the rspb's Big Garden Bird Watch, where they ask people to spend an hour in there garden, making a note of all the birds that visit it. Since I've changed the feeders around, it's not been as easy to count the birds, because when they are feeding you have to look out of one window, and when they're not you have to look out of a different window on the other side of the house. Anyway, here's what I managed to count- 1 male Redpoll,

35+ Siskins, 10+ Goldfinches, 20+ Chaffinches, 10+ Greenfinches, 1 Bullfinch, 25+ Blue Tits, 10+ Great Tits, 5+ Coal Tits, 1 Marsh Tit, 10+ Blackbirds, 5+ Robins, 3+ Nuthatches, 4+ Dunnocks, 12+ House Sparrows, 1 Fieldfare, 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 2 Crows, 2 Magpies, 3 Jays, 1 Sparrowhawk and 8+ Starlings.

Not a bad days birding really!

Black Kite revisited...

Decided to have a third got at the Black Kite at gigrin today (it's great to have a rarity on your doorstep!). It showed amazingly well again, with around 400 of it's red cousins.

Other birds present included 20+ Buzzards, 50+ Crows, 15+ Rooks, 10+ Ravens, 2 Grey Herons, 3 Pied Wagtails and 6 Long-tailed Tits.

A wild 'Grouse' chase...

Me and dad set off to R.W.T Becon Hill this morning , as I had been asked by the rwt it I could carry out some bird surveys over the winter to see what was up there as they had no records up there for the winter months. This was the 1st decent chance of getting up to the reserve in over 2 months either because of bad weather or other commitments! The roads were still a bit dodgy but we were determined to get there, we even had to walk a mile or so to get to the reserve from where we had to park because there was still lots of snow there. Ironically were saw more birds walk there (Yellowhammer, Stock Dove, Pheasant and other odds and sods) than on the reserve it's self. After spending several hours looking for Red Grouse we finally heard one calling, and before long we saw him. We then tried to look to see where he had flown to, then out of the heather he popped and another one, great. After watching and listening to them for a few more minutes a third bird got up out of the heather, fantastic - well worth the sweat and tears getting there!!

1st Jack Snipe of the year...

Myself and Tony set off to north Rads early this morning to see if we could find any Woodcock to ring as there seem to be fewer and fewer on the coast since the thaw set in. We only managed to catch 1 out of 12 very jumpy Woodcock, but we did manage to catch our 1st Jack Snipe of the year (7 ringed between us last year, so a long way to go yet!), which made up for the lack of Woodcock.

Early morning ringing...

With the moon not setting until very late in the night at the moment, the only chance of ring for the next few days is first thing in the morning before light, so at 03:00 me and tony set off to Ynyslas to see what we could catch. Disspite there being far fewer birds around we caught 4 Lapwings, 3 Woodcock and a Snipe.

Birding in Cardiff...

I decided to come home the long way from Essex and do some birding in Cardiff. After getting my UK year list over 100 birds I was keen to see what I could get my welsh list up to. 1st stop was Goldcliff pools, plenty of birds here including a redhead smew, 150+ Grey Plovers, 150+ Knot, 1 Greenshank and a Spotted Redshank (other year ticks included Turnstone and Gadwall). Next stop Cardiff Bay, were I saw the returning Lesser Scaup, 2 Greater Scaup and loads of Coots.

Final Stop before heading home was Cosmeston Lakes, where I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a Bittern. Sadly no joy on that front, but I did manage to add a few more birds on to my year list including Common Gull, and Pink-foot Goose (Wales year list is now 110)