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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.
Gorseinon-grovesend circular
Did a count of singing warblers etc, 14 each of willow warbler, chiffchaff, 13 blackcap.
Singles of whitethroat and grasshopper warbler. At Mynydd lliw , 3 skylark.
At PANT Y SAIS FEN this morning there were, Cuckoo 1, Grasshopper Warbler 2 reeling, Reed Warbler 11+ singing, Cetti’s Warbler 5, a few Willow warblers, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Green Woodpecker 2 and Redpoll, along with the usual common species.
FAIRWOOD LAKE early evening: Little Grebe heard and eventually seen (lots of water lilies etc), Grey Wagtail m + f together, Moorhens, Coot, Mallard (Female + ducklings not seen), 1 Greylag, 1 Swallow. Woodland evening chorus in full song as before.
Our herring gulls are making a pitifully inadequate attempt to build a nest with pine needles on the flat roof above our back porch/ downstairs lavatory. If their diet is limited to peanuts, fallen sunflower hearts and the occasional kitchen scraps, any young would be malnourished. However, I don’t think they have the faintest idea as to how to bring fertile eggs into the world, less still incubate them. These birds are surely losers.
Marsh harrier Pennard Cliffs (record from Richard Dann)
Singing blackcap at Langland Golf Course this morning. Also 7 goldfinch, Chiffchaff. and 4 linnets. A flypast by a peregrine.
Rotherslade today. 4 whitethroats within c. 500 m of the bay (east towards Limeslade) in full song. Two rock pipit territories, stonechat, linnet, goldfinch, greenfinch, house sparrow and a slow worm on the path. Kidney vetch and early purple orchids now out along the coast.
At 0630 today: first wren song of the year. Why so late? Lunchtime: blackcap singing just over the hedge. Another first. Our female herring gull was moving its head and throat oddly and I knew exactly what was coming. It brought up something looking very like porridge on our back lawn. It spent a minute eating it and then went about its lawful occasions in the usual way. We just wonder if the flat roof above our back porch would make a good spot for a nest. If we were not plagued by tree rats, Sciurus carolinensis, it would.
Oxwich NNR this morning 6.30am Sedge Warbler. Grasshopper Warbler. Cetti’s. Chiffchaff. Blackcap.
A week ago I reported on the behaviour of two herring gulls: the third winter, female?, and a fully adult male. The former had been treating our chimney pots and back garden as its personal fief. By today the male was almost as familiar and unafraid. Late afternoon there was behaviour: again possibly courtship. The male took a beakful of the female’s primary feathers, left wing, and pulled out her wing to full extension. He held her in this way for fifteen or twenty seconds before letting go and flying off. The female lost no feathers and was apparently not… Read more »
Red Kite over the garden here in West Cross 13.00 today. Mobbed by a couple of crows.
Lockdown walk to Fairwood Lake this evening: 4 Swallows, Little Grebe trilling, few Coot & Moorhens, Mallard with 5 ducklings, Grey Heron, Greylag flew off. Surrounding woodland alive with birdsong – Goldcrest, Wren, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Green Woodpecker etc. Nothing unusual but so lifts the spirits!