Scaup

A male Scaup was on the lake at Sandy Water Park this morning. It was diving constantly suggesting it was new in, perhaps overnight. Also present on the lakes; 20+ Tufted Duck, 10+ Pochard, 10+ Gadwall, 6+ Shoveler and a couple of Teal.

Scaup

Scandinavian Rock Pipits

On a post work visit to North Dock Lake last Friday, I found two littoralis Rock Pipits feeding with a couple of Pied Wagtails around the shore of the lake.

On these photos you can see the subtle tinges of blue coming through in the head, shoulders and scapulars. The underparts are relatively clean with no smudging. At times the bird appeared to show some pinky areas in the breast and around the neck, the latter of which you can see in the first photo. The legs were pinky orange and the outer tail feathers were a dull white.

The other bird, photographed bellow showed the same coloured tones in the plumage but had a slightly dirtier look to the underparts with bolder streaks. It also had a pale based to the bill and a few flecks of white above the eye - perhaps a stronger supercilium moulting through?

On Monday I heard my first singing Chiffchaff of the year, and this morning I was lucky enough to enjoy close views of some displaying Great Crested Grebes at Sandy Water Park, with four present in total.

Med Gull at breeding grounds

An adult Mediterranean Gull was at the Black-headed Gull breeding site on the Lagoon this morning, the first I've seen at the reserve all winter. Last year was the first time that Meds successfully bred anywhere in Wales so I'm hoping for a repeat this year.

Mediterranean Gull

Also present were two ringed Black-headed Gulls (White 2K61 and 2N27), both from Slimbridge, and ringed in 2007 and 2010 respectively as chicks. It'll be interesting to see if they stick around to breed.

On the Saline Lagoon there was a ringed Lesser Black-backed Gull, initially ringed at a landfill site in Gloucestershire in the winter of 2008, it has also been seen regularly during the summer along the west coast of Portugal.

Lesser Black-backed Gull - Blue CVX

Also present here were four Spotted Redshank, ten Greenshank, 18 Redshank, 379 Black-tailed Godwit, a Grey Plover, a Snipe and 85 Wigeon.

In the Millennium Wetlands I saw my first butterflies of the year; five Brimstone, two Small Tortoiseshell and a Peacock.

Peacock

The last few weeks

The last few weeks have been quite quiet bird wise, but a few notable species have included a Jack Snipe flushed from the saltmarsh along with c.30 Snipe, a Kittiwake over the estuary on a stormy day, and my only Fieldfare of the winter on Friday last week.

Lapwing numbers have dropped right off now with only single figures on the saline lagoon and a couple on the breeding site on Deep Lake.

A couple of weeks ago the four Spotted Redshank were still around but just over the last week they seem to have disappeared.

This male Goldeneye showed well a few days ago after being brought in on the spring super tide.

Goldeneye

Hybrid Herring x LBBG

A presumed hybrid Herring Gull x Lesser Black-backed Gull has been present at Sandy Water Park for at least three weeks now.

It shows a mantle colour intermediate between the two, pretty much spot on for Yellow-legged Gull (maybe a bit pale?), a small amount of light diffuse head streaking (should be concentrated around the eye in YLG), a dark red/orange orbital ring, a rounded head and a relatively weak looking beak with the red gonys spot not reaching the upper mandible. The overall size was smaller than both Lesser Black-backed Gull and Herring Gull, and only a little larger than Common Gull. Leg colour, shown in some of the photos bellow appeared a dull yellow with a hint of pink - a typical colour for these hybrids, and not the bright yellow you should see in YLG. The open wing showed plenty of black in the wing tip with only a short mirror on p10. Both wings showed a complete black band on p5 - not the very thin or broken band you see in most hybrids, however not as thick as you'd expect from YLG.

I suppose it's possible that it could be a small female Yellow-legged Gull, but with most features pointing towards a Herring x LBBG hybrid I think it's likely that that's what it is.

Smaller and lighter coloured than Lesser Black-backed Gull. Small amount of head streaking.

Darker than Herring Gull...

...and Common Gull

Yellow pink legs.

Small mirror on p10 an black band on p5.

At the wetland centre, a Merlin chasing a Snipe over the grounds at almost supersonic speed was the exciting to watch. The only other addition to my PWC was a Treecreeper.

A female-type Black Redstart on garage roofs from my front door this afternoon was nice to see - a different bird to the 1st winter male present in November.

First Bonaparte's Gull for Carmarthenshire!

The tide had already fallen a long way out by the time I got into work, so I wasn't expecting much from the bird count. I counted the Lapwing, Godwits and Wigeon, and then decided to have another scan through the Lapwing. A lone gull was sitting in the middle of them which I hadn't noticed while first counting. Black beak, pink legs - Bonaparte's Gull!!! A proper mega for the area and a first for the county! I took a quick record shot and then looked through the scope hoping for it to flap it's wings so I could see its underwing. At the time I was shaking and had to keep looking at it to convince my self that it was indeed a Bonaparte's! It's hard to judge time when you've found a rarity, but after what felt like five or ten minutes, it took flight heading straight over the hide and high to the north over some pylons. I got good views of the underwing to confirm the identification and put the news straight out. Hopefully it will return, but I'm somewhat doubtful.

Bonaparte's Gull

Another Firecrest

On Thursday I found another Firecrest, this time in some bramble in Black Poplar wood giving fantastic views down to two metres! Sadly the heavy rain showers had forced me to leave my camera back in the yard.

On Wednesday, a look out of the office window while doing some bird count data entry into the computer saw me staring at a Great White Egret on the saltmarsh. This is the second day its visited the patch this year so it was good to get it on my Patchwork Challenge list.

Other birds that have made it onto the list include Grey Plover, Golden Plover, Red-breasted Merganser and Red Kite.

This week we've been making repairs to the banks at Water Vole City to make it more safe for the children to play at. On Friday we spent the morning digging a water drainage channel next to a track so that the verge will hopefully dry up allowing a lorry to come in to fix the Heron hide toilets without getting stuck!