Excellent conditions for ringing, with a very light north-westerly breeze and initial low cloud base, resulted in our largest catch of the year to date. The day total of 189 birds of 22 species broke down as follows: The highlights … Read More
A confused weather forecast, with some websites suggesting a high chance of rain and others a dry start to the day. Thankfully the latter proved accurate, and the light north-westerly wind didn’t pick up until mid-morning. We put plenty of … Read More
Oxwich Marsh Warm weather at last! A relatively still and slightly overcast early morning gave way to open skies at Oxwich on 29 May. A light north-easterly wind then gradually picked up, but the conditions remained excellent for a few … Read More
A fairly impromptu decision was made to have a Friday ringing session due to a rapidly deteriorating forecast for the weekend. Despite a clash with both CES and a session that had been organised by Richard Dann in his garden, … Read More
Gower Ringing Group’s Constant Effort Site (CES) at the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust’s Penclacwydd (Llanelli) reserve recommenced on 29 April 2021. CES was the first standardised nation-wide ringing programme established by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), and has been … Read More
In autumn 2020 Colin Baker started a project on dipper covering the River Afan and its tributaries and the Nant Ffrwdwydd, Neath Port Talbot. This extended the existing Recapture of Adults for Survival (RAS) run by Wayne Morris and covering … Read More
Our first chance to get out as a reasonably large group since the latest lockdown coincided with the tail end of some cold but bright and relatively windless weather. April and May ringing sessions at Oxwich can be fairly quiet, … Read More
The final instalment of ringing summaries from 2020 covers the activities of another two of our recent C Permit holders, Colin Baker and Jo Conway. Both have been very active during 2020, with Colin ringing at sites at Nantymoel, near … Read More
Introduction WWT Llanelli is Gower Ringing Group’s Constant Effort (CES) Site, a project led by Heather Coats. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the CES season was much curtailed in 2020. Additional ringing was completed at a feeding station at WWT Llanelli … Read More
Introduction As many Constant Effort Sites (CESs) couldn’t be operated in 2020 due to Covid-19, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) decided to pilot a garden Constant Effort Site (CES) scheme in 2020. Two members of Gower Ringing Group took … Read More
Introduction Richard Dann achieved his C Permit in autumn 2019. In 2020 he intended to do some ringing in his garden to build up some data on bird populations in Southgate (on the south Gower coast), and to gain some … Read More
Overview of Ringing in 2020 As a result of Covid-19 our activity at Oxwich was much reduced in 2020. We had long periods in which we didn’t ring on the marsh, and even when we were able to do so … Read More
We managed two sessions at Oxwich in late November, one on 23rd and one on 29th. On both days we had very light winds, enabling us to set nets in some more open areas than we usually try. The combined … Read More
A weekend the forecasters got (very) wrong. The very light winds failed to materialise, and instead we got a moderate north-easterly and easterly breeze that blew the nets around and limited our catch. The catch was, nevertheless very varied, as … Read More
It was one of those occasional days when the weather turns out better than the marginal forecast. The predicted light to moderate north-westerly wind took a long while to get going, early rain disappeared, and mid-morning showers failed to materialise. … Read More
Limited expectations were the order of the day due to the forecast of a moderate north-westerly wind, a bad direction for the marsh. In reality, however, it was still at dawn and the wind only picked up from 09:00. We … Read More
In early September we were paid a visit by Renaud Flamant, the European colour-ringing co-ordinator for Mediterranean gull. Renaud’s itinerary included a couple of days in Gower, a brief stop in Carmarthenshire and a visit to Ceredigion. His plan was … Read More
A couple of weekends of average to poor weather, with wind speed limiting the catch. On 12 September we split our effort, with Jo Conway assisting Wayne Morris with his Retrapping Adults for Survival project on dipper in the Valleys, … Read More