Meetings
Forthcoming field trips are detailed below. It would be great if you could join us for some of these and experience some of our fantastic local sites and species.
Please contact the leader in advance to confirm your attendance.
We are also proceeding (cautiously) in organising some indoor events. The first of these was our Annual General Meeting in November.
We look forward to seeing you.
The GOS Committee
Whiteford Burrows: Saturday 11 December 2021
Leader: Rob Taylor (c/o 07770 986791)
Meet at Cwm Ivy car park at 09:00 so that we can head off promptly. There is a £1 parking charge (honesty box). The ground is likely to be muddy and uneven in places, and the walk will take 3-4 hours. Please being a packed lunch.
Whiteford is good for a wide variety of species. These may include passerines such as firecrest and crossbill in the plantation, waders on the edge of the saltmarsh and the foreshore, raptors including hen harrier, osprey, peregrine and short-eared owl, grebes, divers and a range of other waterfowl. Anything is possible as a red-rumped swallow during one previous field trip and a party of snow buntings during another has taught us.
See the map below. Cwm Ivy car park is marked with the yellow pin.
Crofty: Saturday 22 January 2022
Leader: Barry Stewart 07730 502738
Meet at 08:30 at Crofty Industrial Estate SA4 3RS /// zaps.trophy.solve
High tide watch to see waterfowl (egrets, brent geese, pintail, shoveler, etc.) and waders (oystercatchers, knot, dunlin etc.) at Salthouse Point together with waterbirds that may have drifted up on the high tide (such as slavonian and great crested grebes). There should also be a selection of passerines in the scrub and on the saltmarsh, and a good chance of raptors such as peregrine and merlin.
Margam Park: Saturday 19 February 2022
Leader: Robert Jones 07828 692615 with Daniel Black
Meet at 09:00 at Abbott’s Kitchen, Abbey Road, Port Talbot SA13 2TA ///unwind.bookshop.jumbo
Birds we should encounter will be wintering thrushes including fieldfare and redwing, a range of common resident woodland species, and if we are lucky, species such as lesser spotted woodpecker and hawfinch, which have been seen around the park in the past.
Banwen: Saturday 26 March 2022 at 09.00 hrs
Leader Eddie Hunter: 07935 212290
Park along the road at SN 85691 09878 /// finally.apartment.vanilla
Meet at Pond at SN857096 /// glue.inviting.engineers
A three hour walk in the Banwen uplands hoping to see willow tit, crossbill, siskin , redpoll possibly brambling and goshawk amongst other species in an area that is always a good place for birding.
Walking boots are recommended.
When indoor meeting resume, we anticipate they will continue to be held at the Environment Centre, Pier St, Swansea. SA1 1RY. They will start at 19:15 unless otherwise advertised. There is a charge of £1 on the door to cover the cost of room hire.