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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!
Lockdown walk from Caswell to Langland. Wheatear male on Whiteshell Point, and a whitethroat singing on Newton Cliff were nice. Two rock pipit territories at Whiteshell Point and linnets very vocal on the cliff.
Garden watching (Langland): jay, magpie, carrion crow, coal tit, blue tit, great tit, blackbird, mistle thrush, robin, herring gull, nuthatch, chiffchaff, long-tailed tit, wren. Unexceptional – but I have been able to find the wren and magpie nests, and it is obvious that the great tits are nesting very close by.
Lock down walk on the cliffs from Limeslade west this morning: 1 swallow. Singing / territories: 17 dunnock, 7 linnet (pairs), 6 greenfinch, 5 wren, 5 robin, 4 stonechat, 3 rock pipit, 3 chiffchaff (in local areas of deciduous scrub), 1 bullfinch, 1 blackcap (by Langland Golf Course).
Also present: blackbird, song thrush, various small flocks of goldfinch. 2 grey seal offshore.
Nice confiding female green woodpecker above Langland Corner, and a willow warbler singing near St Peter’s Church was my first of the year.
Fairwood Common this evening for lockdown exercise: – our first single Swallow, also Willow Warblers & Chiffchaffs singing from tree line near Swansea City FC. Gt Spotted Woodpecker drumming.
Pwll Mawr lake: – Gadwall m + f, Mallard 2m, Moorhen, Grey Heron & 4 Canada flew in.
Interesting birds at a premium in my garden at the moment so here’s a picture of a false widow spider that was too close for comfort to my back door!
Forgot to mention woodpecker heard in the Oystermouth castle woods first time for a couple of years.
Hi all – five choughs on Pennard Cliffs opposite Bosco Lane this afternoon April 8. Also a patch of burned gorse which is sad but fortunately it’s not a huge area.
Having been alerted by calling Herring Gulls I looked up to see an Osprey flying north over my garden in Tycoch, Swansea at 3.40 pm on Tuesday 7th April.
First swallow this year seen from my home flying east from Worms Head direction at 8am Monday 6 April.
Three Yellowhammers near Gt Pitton Farm today.
6 April 2020. Over the winter we have had a third winter herring gull with us much of the time in Brynfield Road, standing on a chimney, treating our back garden as its territory, accepting food from us and chasing off competitor gulls and carrion crows. Its plumage has not quite transitioned into full adult. The black band on its gonys has, these last six weeks, been going through the change to red-orange. At lunchtime today a significantly bigger herring gull in full breeding plumage was alongside it on the lawn; and for five or ten minutes we watched unmistakable… Read more »
At last I have heard a Chiff chaff this year in Crynant on my local short walk, There were also 3 Goosanders and 2 Canada geese flying over. Still lots of Robins about.
Ashley Rd playing fields
Bizarrely for the last 2 days there have been 2 Canada geese & 2 greylag geese sitting in the middle of the right hand pitches.. I assume they are from the boating lake.. just looks very odd