Author: Cedwyn Davies

                      It was very overcast to start and drizzle threatened but didn’t come to anything. The second half cleared up to a sunny day.             … Read More

With the weather forecast looking far from perfect for the Oxwich Marsh site, Heather Coats, Dan Rouse, Phil Mead and I decided to chance a visit to Margam Park (the first since April). The predicted wind didn’t hamper our start … Read More

RETRAPPING ADULTS FOR SURVIVAL (RAS)               The intrepid band of nest box checkers and ringers has finished the RAS study on Pied flycatchers at RSPB Cwm Clydach Reserve for 2015. The monitoring of this … Read More

Heather Coats and I travelled west to embark upon the seventh CES session of the year. Weather conditions were favourable with an overcast sky and no breeze to disturb the nets. The early net rounds each produced a juvenile wren … Read More

The fifth Constant Effort Site (CES) session took place today. It turned out sunnier than the forecast but this was not a problem. We caught a juvenile Whitethroat, the first of this species since 2011. We are catching predominately juvenile … Read More

Heather Coats, Charlie Sargent, Phil Mead and Dan Rouse joined forces for the second Constant Effort Site (CES) session at WWT Llanelli today. We heard Long tailed tits calling in the trees and then caught ten of them, a mixture of … Read More

Constant Effort Site season commenced today when we crossed the Afon Llwchwr into Carmarthenshire for our first visit of 2015. I joined Heather Coats, Phil Mead, Dan Rouse and Andrew Hughes for a 05:30 rendezvous and the seven nets were … Read More

           I met with Heather Coats and Chris Newberry for a 06:00 start at Margam Park this morning. The rather cool conditions at the outset soon changed to sunny, cloudless skies. We erected a twelve and … Read More

I joined Heather and trainee ringer Lyndon for a Valentine’s Day visit to ‘Margam Country Park’. This was to be Lyndon’s first experience of bird ringing and provided ‘DJ Songbird’ was playing the right tunes he would have a few … Read More

With the ‘A-Team’ playing at Oxwich Marsh it was an opportunity for the reserves to pay a first visit of 2015 to ‘Margam Country Park’. I joined Chris Newberry (Kenfig Ringing Group) for an 07:00 sign-in at the gate before … Read More

We managed to complete CES 12 having been rained off last Tuesday. The conditions were good and we had a total of 14 birds, slightly up on last year.  Ten of the birds were juveniles including a Blackcap, 2 Chiff … Read More

We were hoping to fare better than last year when we had the lowest number of birds ever on our CES – 3! It was a good day with low wind and broken cloud and the first bird was a … Read More

Charlie Sargent joined me to do the CES at the National Wetland Centre Wales . The weather was calm with some cloud cover. We had 27 birds and 22 of these were juvenile birds which is an improvement on last … Read More

I was joined by Heather Coats and Phil Mead for this morning’s ringing session at Margam Park. We supplemented our usual 102 metres of net with a further 36 metres in an attempt to find the optimal net placement within … Read More

For the last ten consecutive Wednesday mornings we have been patiently monitoring the Pied Flycatcher RAS at RSPB Cwm Clydach so it was a change to spend a pleasant sunny Wednesday morning at our site in the grounds of Margam … Read More

Phil Mead, Charlie Sargent and I joined Heather Coats for the sixth CES of the season at the Wildlife & Wetlands Trust‘s ‘Llanelli Wetlands Centre’ http://wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/llanelli/ The normal one hundred and seventeen metres of mist netting was erected in the … Read More

Heather Coats was joined by Phil Mead this morning on Friday the thirteenth in sunny Llanelli. The table below reflects the number of juvenile birds (out of the total of 28 birds) wandering through the scrub. Species Adult Juvenile Retrap … Read More

I joined Heather Coats this morning for a short introductory ringing session with Phil Mead the Group’s new trainee. A six metre and a nine metre net were set in a dog-leg near the feeders which we hoped would draw … Read More