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Guidelines for Reporting Rarities and Submission of Annual Records
Detailed records of nationally or locally rare species (guidance on these is
here) should be sent to the County Recorder Eddie Hunter (
goweros23@gmail.com) as soon as possible after the sighting. An appropriate description should be provided of the species, your previous experience of it (and similar species), the circumstances and weather conditions in which the sighting occurred and any other pertinent information (such as photos). He will then circulate to the local or national records committee as relevant.
Day to day observations, including of nest sites, flocks of birds and species of local interest, should be collated in the Annual Record Form and sent to Eddie as an email attachment following each calendar year. Receiving these by the end of January is ideal as an early start can then be made on compiling the annual report.
PLEASE NOTE
Please could we ask that detailed locational information that may lead to the disturbance of the nest sites of species listed under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981) is omitted from any posts. This may otherwise lead to an offence being committed.
Schedule 1 species that regularly breed in the recording area are Dartford warbler, chough, honey buzzard, crossbill, goshawk, kingfisher, hobby, red kite, barn owl, peregrine, little ringed plover and Cetti’s warbler.
2 whooper swan over Baglan Burrows yesterday afternoon. Possibly the Llanishen Res. birds that left in the am then dropped into eglwys Nunnydd early afternoon. Informed they had flown west from eggy res. Had great views of them over head as they went north.
Also at Brunel dock and river mouth were 147 oystercatcher, 39 curlew, 38 mallard, 9 little egret, 7 turnstone, 3 shell duck, 5 heron, peregrine and single bar tailed godwit
More than 160 Black Tailed Godwit at Dalton’s Point, Penclawdd on a rising tide this afternoon.
Saturday late afternoon myself and Rob Jones were lucky enough to find ourselves a PACIFIC DIVER in Eglwys Nunnydd. The bird was again present sunday am and pm. Please note that there is no general public access to this site
Also birds of note saturday were a Great Northern Diver in Swansea kings dock along with 17 shag, 6 reed bunting, 61 cormorant and grey Heron and a kingfisher.
Along the eastern breakwater were 2 rock pipit kestrel 7 cormorant, 19 redshank, 13 turnstone, 4 Dublin, common gull and black headed gull
Just to add the Diver is the second record for Wales and the 9th record for the uk
very vocal williow tit alongside the track from Gorseinon to grovesend roughly behind Asda . really pleased to see they’re still around locally . last weekend , 14 greenfinch , 8 reed bunting , 26 mead pipit , 40 linnet , 10 chaffinch , 12 song thrush , 10 blackbird , 18 goldfinch and 8 house sparrow at salt house point , Crofty .
Rob Taylor adds a few birds I missed in my report bringing the total up to 56 and puts some numbers on the significant species…
Green Woodpecker, Bullfinch, Kestrel, Turnstone, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser BB Gull.
Numbers: Slavonian Grebe 2, Great C Grebe 3, Cormorant, 12, Great N Diver 1 poss 2, Eider 121+, Scaup 2f 1m, Turnstone 17+, Ringed Plover 52, Redshank 30+ Black-tailed Godwit 17.
There was also an Imm Spoonbill at Daltons Point later on.
A very successful if rather wet field trip today to Whiteford, 19 of us walked out to Berges Island and in total we reported 49 species. Highlights were Eider, Great Northern Diver, Merlin and Slavonian Grebe. My thanks to Rob Taylor for leading the walk and providing his expertise and my apologies for a grainy shot of Eider seen through the rain. A fuller list goes like this: Robin, blackbird, blue tit, pheasant, mistle thrush song thrush, jackdaw, buzzard, collared dove, long-tailed tit, dunnock, chaffinch, carrion crow, great spotted woodpecker, tree creeper, gold crest, ringed plover, dunlin, oystercatcher, cormorant, brent… Read more »
A Ruddy Shelduck in amongst a small group of Common Shelduck on the saltmarsh just north of Cheriton this afternoon about 2pm. Unfortunately I could not get close enough to get any good photos. Also a female/juvenile Hen Harrier near to Llanrhidian.
South of Loughor Bridge on the rising tide this morning. Shelduck 10, Grey Plover 2, GC Grebe 2, Goldeneye 1 fem, Wigeon 47, Bar t Godwit 1, Dunlin 47, Greylag 1, Black t Godwit 2.
9 curlew on Ashley Rd playing fields
South of the Loughor Bridge this morning on a falling tide. Pintail 34, Dunlin 51, Oystercatcher 36, Bl t Godwit 3, Brent 24, Canada Goose 6, Redshank 11.
This afternoon.
Port Eynon. GN Diver 1, GC Grebe 3, Guillemot 3 up channel, Gannet 1 adult down channel.
Dalton’s Point. Spoonbill 3, Teal 174, Pintail 5, all in the creek.
This afternoon.
Penclawdd. Teal 78, Greenshank 2, Curlew 1
Dalton’s Point. Pintail 85, Teal 13, Grey Plover 1.
Port Eynon. GN Diver 2, one close in to Sedgers Bank, another further out, both joined up and swam towards the Point. Ringed Plover 26, Turnstone 4, Stonechat 1 pair, all these feeding together on the beach in a sheltered area close to the parking area, Purple Sandpiper 1. Gannet 3, skua sp1, possibly Pomarine but it dropped on the water and was lost to sight before positive ID could be made. Also good number of Kitts. All seabirds heading down channel.
I see chough almost daily in good weather and always try to check for rings. I thought I hadn’t seen any ringed birds recently but I wondered about one in this photo (about to be deleted). Sorry it’s a long-distance shot.
Was this in Gower?
Near Pobbles. I know the plastic rings often fall off, but I wondered whether that was a BTO ring on the middle bird.
It looks to me like a BTO metal ring Gary. I think you are correct and the colour rings must have degraded.