To add a sighting, simply leave a reply below. Enter the details of your sighting and upload an image or video clip if possible. You will need to be registered and logged-in to post updates or leave replies.
NB: Maximum size for video clips is 30Mb…
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.
Oxwich Marsh: yesterday 269 swallows, 3 sand martin and 8 house martin ringed.
Also captured, a female sparrowhawk
Tuesday around the dune slack below Cwm Ivy tor saw 65 ringed plover , 18 dunlin , 11 sanderling , 1 knot and around 3000 plus oystercatcher .
1 whinc hat adult , 2 tree pipit from the pines and 5 sandwich tern over the bay.
Today , lesser whitethroat and garden warbler at Salthouse Pt Crofty . 2 whimbrel and a common sand by Loughor bridge plus 2 greenshank and 47 redshank at Penclawdd
Need help identifying this please. Salthouse Point, Crofty at sunset tonight.
Female whinchat
Great! Thanks Alun.
Great photos ..
I was lucky. Another 5 minutes and the light would have gone…
A fourth colour-ringed Med Gull today on the same roof as my last report:
WHITE T55U 10.30 24/08/2021 Mumbles 51.34.22N 3.59.33W
Well done Jeremy – that’s excellent, particularly given the limited numbers around at present
MEDITERRANEAN GULL, COLOUR RING SIGHTINGS:
GREEN RU3V 06.45 Bracelet Bay 51.34.12N 3.59.37W
WHITE 3OJV 07.30 Bracelet Bay 51.34.12N 3.59.37W
YELLOW AYEE 08.00 Mumbles 51.34.22N 3.59.33W
On the roof of a house, at high tide, very close to where last reported. (site faithful)
Langland Golf Course: green woodpecker, and my first wheatear of the autumn in non-breeding habitat. Grey wagtail over, indicating autumn passage / dispersal in that species too. 31 Med gulls on Langland Bay, with three more west along Newton Cliff.
Richard Dann has had 7 tree pipits over the past two days at Southgate.
Weobley salt marsh this morning on a rising tide saw approx 165 ringed plover , 60 dunlin , 8 golden plover
Approx 1100 herring gull , 55 GBB gull , 70 LBB gull .
1 juv yellow wagtail , 2 juv wheatear with fresh scaly grey feathering . Prob came from a nest in the mound by the track . 4 more ad wheatear .
Upper Loughor , LR plover plus one stock dove .
Should state 2 LR plover
c100 swallows on a wire in the Penmaen back road near the church and cattle grid at about 1800 hrs.
Aug 23 Penclawdd 10.00: 138 redshank, 1 common sandpiper, 4 little egret, 2 grey heron, 2 curlew, c40 greylag, 1 oystercatcher, 1 cormorant, 1 great crested grebe.
Little evidence of sparrowhawks around Brynfield Road for months. However I am cutting the back lawn this afternoon and I find evidence of a kill, almost certainly by a male sprawk. Two exquisite and intact primary feathers leave me in no doubt that the loser was a goldfinch. (As I brought them into the house, a buzzard was overhead.) (At 0725 Friday in broad daylight I came out of the back door and heard a tawny owl, the first in the vicinity of the garden for a good while.)
Oxwich Marsh: 2 tree pipits, 2 snipe, kingfisher, grasshopper warbler, garden warbler, 2 marsh tit. Small numbers of reed and sedge warblers present.
Blackpill (evening): interesting to see a smooth hound (small shark species) swimming around at the surface in Swansea Bay. Double dorsal fin clearly visible. Identified by Tate Lloyd. Very few Mediterranean gulls present. Two great crested grebes on the sea.
Plenty of birds mopping up the flying ants on the North Gower , several hundred mixed gulls , mainly BH gull with backup of larger gulls , between Wernffrwd and Crofty . 110 plus mixed swallow and house Martin also . 460 herring gull , 25 LBB gull , 12 GBb gull , 40 greylag and an osprey on the posts from Wernffrwd mound . Another 55 plus swallow /house Martin over Gowerton
Langland to Caswell. At Whiteshell Point one Fulmar. Some tens of Swallows all flying east as if on early migration. Large flock of BH Gulls hawking for flying ants. At St Peter’s Church perhaps over 100 Swifts: certainly the most I have seen all year. At Caswell a Med Gull with a green ring, too far away to read the letters.
An emergence of flying ants this evening attracted a box of 20 Swifts, the most I’ve seen over the house all year
Oxwich Marsh: c. 200 starlings and 150 swallows in to roost last night. Ringed plover called overhead after dark.
Adult Sandwich Tern fishing and feeding a young bird at 0800 this morning between Mumbles pier and the inshore lifeboat station.
Pennard Golf Course this afternoon
Pair of kestrels actively hunting for several hours..
Juvenile sparrowhawk still around the valley & Castle..
At Gnoll park lake this afternoon there was 3 probably 4 Mandarin ducks (- 2 which looked like juveniles under the branches mainly), on the edge of the main lake. Also near the playground a family of young spotted flycatchers were feeding on the woodland edge. Also Treecreeper and some juvenile Goldcrests. I also been told about another family party of Spotted flycatchers last week near Glynneath
Fairwood Common
2 common whitethroat
1 male stonechat
A quick look at Lougher Bridge at high tide today saw 39 little egrets, 14 Cormarant, 2 Black Tailed Godwit, 1 Swift and 14 Shelduck. Also loads of Black headed Gulls to look through but no Med gulls mixed in. Still 11 Swifts over Glynneath yesterday
Yesterday evening (August 16th), 6 swifts seen along the River Tawe by Swansea Vale, flying amongst the sand martins. Also heard more swifts in Skewen. Saw 4 Jays. I think some of them were juveniles.
Mumbles to Rotherslade around the coast: whimbrel in flight (calling), 2 grey seal off Limeslade and a porpoise foraging just west of the bay. Sparrowhawk hunting on the cliffs.
A female Sparrow Hawk has just flown past, a few feet from my window and put up dozens of roosting Jackdaws and as I watched it I noticed a Buzzard being chased by half a dozen Magpies here in West Cross.
Clyne Common: a flyover ringed plover was unexpected. Otherwise a relatively recent brood of fledged stonechats (3rd brood this year?) and a green woodpecker, as well as good little flocks of finches (linnet, goldfinch, greenfinch). News on a Norwegian-ringed black-headed gull recorded at Blackpill in late July are in. The bird was ringed in Norway in July 2013, and was subsequently recorded there in every year up until 2020 (last Norwegian sighting in June 2020). It has been noted at Blackpill in September 2020 (by Renaud Flamant) and again this July by me. Its apparent absence from the colony in… Read more »