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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.
Lockdown walk. No surprises today. Rock pipits, more fledgling stonechats and some offshore gannets, but a lizard trying to catch a small blue butterfly was interesting.
An unscheduled trip to Morriston Hospital this evening. Lots of house martins breeding under the eves on the way to Accident & Emergency (and daughter’s ankle not badly damaged it would seem)
Lockdown walk along the cliffs at Rotherslade: whitethroat feeding young with flower beetles, fledgling stonechats, singing rock pipit and a shag flying east.
Moths this morning included an orange footman. Less than 10 previous county records noted in the Moths of Glamorgan (Gilmore, Slade & Stewart).
Lots of singing blackaps, wrens and treecreepers in Bishop’s Wood Saturday. Also a pair of buzzards. Fledgling stonechats and whitethroat on territory on Langland Golf Course.
#Lockdown Golf at Pennard yesterday
5 whitethroats on territories
1 family party of 3 stonechats plus 1 other male
many mipits
Nice hunting kestrel
Many rooks looking for leatherjackets on the Links..
It was very windy on my local walk this morning. I saw a juvenile Stonechat sitting on a prominent piece of vegetation with the male nearby alarm calling. I moved away and watched the juvenile pay no attention at all to start with but it finally decided it had better move! I had a Lesser redpoll fly over and several Blackcaps singing but nothing was flying around otherwise.
Hi Heather could you add your location to your sightings please? That would be very helpful. Thank you
Green woodpecker in the garden, seemingly ignoring Christine, who sat quietly nearby. A hint of movement from me and it was off: shy birds of course. Probably the female of few days ago.
Mid morning: male cuckoo heard in the vicinity of Broadley Farm, Northway/ Clyne Common.
I heard him yesterday.
Oxwich Nature reserve 5.30am this morning Cuckoo calling for over an hour. Heard and seen.
Lone swallow singing loudly from my t.v ariel in killay tonight at 6pm.
Four swallows over the house this afternoon. The first I have seen here this year.
I had a pair of Lesser redpolls on the feeders this morning, the first seen in my garden since early April. A bit later on a male Sparrowhawk landed on top of the feeding station for a minute or so before flying off.
Lockdown Walk this morning..
Surprised to see a pair of red kites circling over Pyle Corner in Bishopston..
Our herring gull pair has intensified the behaviour which makes us think an egg can’t be too far away. We have been warned that a herring gull nest in the garden will not be attractive.
At 2.30 today we heard a green woodpecker in our neighbour’s sycamores. It flew down into our garden and was with us for, say, 12 minutes, inching its way along the face of a dry stone wall until it (a female) was thirty feet from where Cris and I were sitting in plain view. It was very alert, but more probably for sparrowhawks than us. We only had to sit still. When it flew back into the trees, it did so quietly and perhaps without having seen us.
Lockdown garden news… West Cross
First swallow of the summer this morning..
First song thrush recorded this year
Family party of starlings being very noisy
And a pair of collared dove have reappeared after a very long absence
I am getting used to hearing Cuckoos every day – it’s difficult to know how many there are although there are at least 2, one on either side of the valley. On my walk to the west side yesterday, one was very close but I couldn’t see it. Today I saw a male Stonechat carrying food and another with 3 juveniles, both on the east side of the valley.
Bit late with this one sorry – five choughs on Pennard East Cliff on April 8 afternoon
Whiteford Bay dunes today – loads of stonechats, meadow pipits, very noisy whitethroats (presume common), a few martins. Lovely
Mumbles old RNLI station by the entrance to the pier car park – two rock pipits on stones below the rowing club and then on the high rock face opposite going in and out of the greenery – Wednesday afternoon I think
Shld edit that to say the dunes behind Broughton Bay, not Whiteford
Clyne Common this afternoon. Several stone chats and meadow pipits, buzzard mobbed by a crow. Sky lark hovering and singing, two swifts flew over and a male cuckoo calling from the direction of Blackhills. And a fox stopped to look at me.
Spotted Flycatcher active in garden.
Hi all, a friend of mine sent me the following picture of a newly emerged dragonfly(?), from her pond asking for identification, over to you boys and girls, thanks
Swift over Langland Golf Course Monday 8.00am
The Herring Gull pair, which might have nested in our garden in Brynfield Road, has been mating for the best part of three weeks. Both birds are still with us each day, but in the last five days or so they have spent less and less time here. The peanuts they get here are undoubtedly a welcome dietary supplement. However, it is clear from pellets that they successfully get crabs, edible and spider. Langland Bay by air is barely 30 seconds away; and they have the skills they need to feed themselves well at low tide and still spend idle… Read more »
Morning walk at Baglan Burrows to Neath river mouth 9.30 a.m. Still warm this morning with plenty of birdsong from Skylarks 4, Meadow Pipits which must have young in the nest as adults have beaks full of insects, singing Whitethroat, Linnet, Goldfinch also a family party of Stonechat. Butterflies were also out in numbers in the dunes including Common Blue 10+, Orange Tip 5, Small White 4, Peacock 1, Small Heath 2, Small Blue 4 and a single Brown Argus. I also disturbed a Treble- bar moth. At the Neath river mouth a small flock of 41 Oystercatcher 2 Whimbrel… Read more »