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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.
Good day out down Salthouse point and Llanrhidian, female Marsh Harrier showed well down Llanrhidian end, also Redstart, Greenfinch, Kestrel, Red Kite Reed Bunting Pipit’s and Kingfisher
Greenfinches, Goldfinches, Reed Bunting, Shelduck, Curlew, Brent Geese, a Kestrel and a Red Kite at Salthouse Point, Crofty this morning.
Tawe Rivermouth at low tide this lunchtime: 140 Dunlin, 9 Redshank, 5 Turnstones, 1 Oystercatcher, and 1 Ringed Plover. Also 4 Greenfinches in the Marina sand dunes.
Margam Abbey:
Pond was very quiet .. except for a little grebe..
Churchyard empty apart from a few song thrush & blackbirds.
Dec 5th: Cefn Bryn east, male hen harrier 2.30pm, woodcock alongside northern edge of moorland, snipe overhead. Two flocks of scoter in Oxwich Bay, over 200 birds.
Yesterday 4th fenrod lake 180 est herring gull, 200+ black headed gull,20+ mute swan ,70 est Canada geese,3 goosanders 2 female 1 male ,good numbers of coot and moorhen,usual mallards and tufteds, hard to get an accurate count birds on the move constantly,nice to meet Alasdair flannagan there after a few years few passerines about pied wagtail robin blackbird jackdaws magpie carrion crows and wood pigeons.
Mistle Thrush in full voice 3.55am near fendrod lake
A Pergerine on Cwm Ivy Tor around noon today.
Nice mobile ‘black’ black redstart west of limeslade at rams tor above cliffpath
Aberafan beach…
At least 50 great crested grebe at the Neath Rivermouth end of the beach . Very difficult to count as they had a lot of gulls mixed in and were very distant
2 singing Song Thrushes today. One in the Marina and one in Singleton Park. By far the earliest I have ever heard them singing
Port Talbot Dock 29&30 November (per Darryl Spittle & James Garside).
Snow bunting (pic attached), merlin, 2 purple sandpiper, up to 80 sanderling in embayment
29/11 Black redstart at East Cliff Southgate
29/11 Blackcap in Langland garden. Present on less than 2% Birdtrack lists in November
At last a grey Black Redstart at Limeslade Bay yesterday, bit late for my first but n=1….
Mumbles Pier (28/11) 15 dunlin, 2 turnstone, 4 juvenile kittiwake and little egret. 20 Med gulls at Bracelet Bay. Stonechat around but not accompanied by Dartfords.
Pwll Du Head (27/11). 1 firecrest (male), small influx of blackbirds noted, marsh tit.
Very few goldcrests and no chiffchaff noted – birds now seem to have moved through. Assume the firecrests are now wintering as opposed to passage birds.
Fenrod lake
56 Canada geese,22 mute swan,45 black headed gulls,10 tufteds
A male goosander,and a great crested grebe.
2 Chough at Rotherslade this morning (27/11)
High tide at crofty – nice close views of green sandpiper plus poor views of distant quartering marsh harrier
Wenffryd – very distant great white egret
Yesterday 2 choughs back at limeslade on path. First time have seen them there this autumn. Last year at this time of year they became a daily occurrence (if I walked that way)
Grey Heron Middle Island Mumbles head (22/11/22 2pm)
Six Spoonbills feeding off Dalton Point this afternoon about 14.00hrs.
Not very good photos but I saw this hen harrier in a brief skirmish with the second bird which I am guessing is a Merlin just after noon above the marsh track from Cwm Ivy to Whiteford Point. They both flew off apparently unharmed.