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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.
Langland this morning: a couple of crossbill over calling.
Yesterday at Blackpill: a white colour-ringed Med gull among approximately 60 Meds loafing and washing on the beach near the pill. The bird was ringed in Antwerp (as an adult) in May 2018.
Also a colour-ringed black-headed gull apparently originating from Norway. Will be interesting to see how long it is before details come through.
Yesterday at Oxwich Marsh: a recaptured French-ringed reed warbler, lesser emperor dragonfly (male – Tom Wright), lots of dark giant horseflies and a fox moth caterpillar.
Quite a few times this summer I have seen gannets tracking porpoises or dolphins out to sea from Southgate, occasionally diving but perhaps also picking up scraps. This morning 7 or 8 gannets. Can you experts identiify the gannet-chaser? (I can’t.)
Also sightings of 3, 5, 4, 5, 7 and 5 chough during the day.
Possibly a juvenille Great Black backed Gull.
A very large group of manx shearwaters just offshore from worm’s head today. Good to also see kittiwakes, fulmars, guillemots and razorbills.
90+ med gulls in Bracelet Bay this morning.. all hunkered down in the rocks & seaweed.. found at least 6 with metal leg rings (not possible to read).. there was 1 colour ringed bird.. waiting for the detail where it was ringed
Common quail found by Gower NT Ranger Mark Hipkin yesterday.. at South Pilton Farm.. pictures on our twitter feed @goweros1
Treecreeper, wrens and goldcrest in the garden in Langland 11.00 today. Lots of meadow brown butterflies about also.
Pair of tawny owls calling to each other bottom of the garden last night.. West Cross..
Loughor Bridge on the rising tide.
Oystercatcher 273, Whimbrel 10, Shelduck adult with two half grown young, Curlew 1.
Castell Du this evening.
Common Sandpiper 7, Little Egret 14, Teal 3.
90 BH gulls & 1 med gull on West Cross Green..
Oxwich Point at dawn: 8+ common dolphins moving east, 3 harbour porpoise foraging, 2 grey seals in the shallows, 9 whimbrel and 1 curlew west. A redshank on the rocks. Large scale movement of Manx shearwater up channel started at around 06:40.
Castell Du this evening
Pied Wagtail 72, Common Sandpiper 2, Sand Martin c 350 in flight over the area, Mallard 8, Teal 3, Little Egret 8, Stonechat 4, three recently fledged juvs with mum in attendance, no sign of dad but I’ve seen a pair there in the past.
South of Loughor Bridge on rising tide
Whimbrel 7, Curlew 5, Oystercatcher 32, Shelduck 2. Lots of disturbance, people walking over the mud flats. One couple nearly drowned and had to be rescued by emergency services as the tide came in.
Southgate: no dophins first thing, but harbour porpoise and grey seal in the inshore waters.
Very few seabirds, with only the odd gannet and gulls present.
Small pods of common dolphin offshore all day at Southgate. Viewable from the cliff edge at West Cliff.
Scores of gulls, black-headed, herring and LB-B, are over the house this late afternoon at up to 200 feet. It is remarkable that the nutritional gain to be had from one female ant sufficiently repays the energetic aerobatics needed to get one. (Our own pair seems content to walk a few steps to an ant’s nest and to feed more efficiently.)
I’ve been told this is probably a juvenile Peregrine Falcon. Hope that’s right. Pen-y-Gaer, Penclawdd this morning.
Agreed Derek. Great photos.
Thanks Jeremy.
Castell Du on a rising tide.
Common Sandpiper 4, Herring Gull 134, LBB Gull 120, GBB Gull 2, Greenshank 1, Teal 3.
4 Med gulls paddling on Langland Beach with the swimmers. 8.00am Sunday
Details of the Polish ringed BH Gull
5354419 15/06/2018 FS 25593
YEL T5UH Black-headed Gull
Chroicocephalus ridibundus
Jankowo
POLAND (KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE) Piotr Indykiewicz
6199328 04/04/2021 YEL T5UH Black-headed Gull
Chroicocephalus ridibundus
Jankowo: Zbiornik Pakoski
POLAND (KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE) Maciej Gierszewski
Adam Loręcki
6257113 18/07/2021 YEL T5UH Black-headed Gull
Chroicocephalus ridibundus
Loughor Bridge, Glamorgan, Wales
UNITED KINGDOM (GLAMORGAN)
Nine seals hauled out in Limeslade and a small pod of Dolphin in Bracelet Bay some leaping clear of the water and swimming below the Gannets which were diving about them.
A flat sea off Port Eynon Point this morning made the porpoises easy to see.
Also a post-breeding party of chough (5) and a singing yellowhammer at Longhole Cliff (east of the track up)
Big gull flock at high tide on Swansea University Playing fields the last couple of days . Quick scan From cc ar when stopped at traffic lights showed many med gulls… Somebody needs to go scan for rings
A wheeling flock of 30+ swifts over Langland Corner.
An adult s/pl Med gull over while watching them.
17 July saw 50 reed warblers captured at Oxwich among a total of 228 birds of 21 species processed by Gower Ringing Group. Read more here: https://www.gowerbirds.org.uk/oxwich-marsh-18-july-2021-a-half-century-of-reed-warblers/