Great White Egret!

So, I'd just finished doing bird counts for the morning at the British Steel hide, and as I was about to leave, I heard the shout, "Great Egret!" I looked out over the marsh and sure enough, a Great White Egret was flying low over the water being chased by a Heron! It landed briefly in a ditch before flying off towards the saltmarsh the other side of the saline lagoon. This was my first Great White Egret that I've seen in Britain, so it was quite an exciting time for me. I just about managed to get some photos, however the light was poor, as were my composure levels, so they're not great.

Great White Egret

A juvenile Little Stint was present, as were two Curlew Sandpipers and three Spotted Redshank (there were four on Sunday). Other counts include 47 Greenshank, 222 Redshank, 203 Knot, 754 Black-tailed Godwit, four Bar-tailed Godwit and 93 Dunlin.

The rest of the day was spent clearing willow from the Swan's Nest Maze that we'd cut previously with help from a group of volunteers from HSBC.

Big swan eggs!

Hopefully it'll grow back nice and thick next year!

While we worked, we had company from some very lethargic Migrant Hawkers which amazingly I was able to pick up by their wings while they were still perched!

Check out the length of those anal appendages!

Note the yellow 'golf tee' on S2

Grey Plover and Goosander

Totals from the last couple of days include two Little Stint, three Curlew Sandpiper, three Spotted Redshank (2 ad. & 1 juv.), 67 Greenshank, 364 Redshank, 669 Black-tailed Godwit, eight Bar-tailed Godwit, 196 Knot, 111 Dunlin, 396 Curlew, and one each of Whimbrel, Water Rail, Snipe and Grey Plover, the latter species being the first I've seen since being here.

Grey Plover

Today there were two Sandwich Tern and a Common Tern fishing over the estuary, though always very distant! The Common Tern picked a series of small fish from the surface of the water and ate them in flight.

While scanning the estuary with my binoculars, I picked up a red head Goosander flying right towards me. It flew right over the hide and seemed to arc round to the east slightly.

A ringed Black-tailed Godwit has been present since 8th September. It was ringed in northern Iceland as a chick on 12th July this year.

Colour ringed Black-tailed Godwit

This Black-headed Gull has also been around for a while. It has a weird beak abnormality on the upper mandible. It's obviously still able to feed with it since it has made it to adulthood.

Black-headed Gull with beak abnormality

New Garganey

While doing rounds of the hides this morning I found a new in female type Garganey, the first for about three weeks. It was feeding on the western side of the lagoon and did a very good job of submerging its head just as I pressed the camera shutter. So good that out of the 30+ photos I took, only two had its head in!

Garganey

Also on the Lagoon were 94 Pintail.

Pintail

I've received news back on the five ringed Mediterranean Gulls I read two weeks ago. Two ringed in France, two in Belgium and one in Holland.

The most interesting one is white 3P17 from Belgium. It was ringed in 2002 as a chick making it an impressive 12 years old. The oldest Med Gull recorded is 15, so not far off! This bird seems to have spent its late summers/autumns in the mid South Wales area and returned Belgium and Germany in the winter and breeding period for most of its years.

White 31A7 was ringed in northern Holland in 2009 aged three. It was seen the next year eating Black-headed Gull eggs (!) at a colony also in northern Holland, and the following summer it was seen for the first time at Llanelli before flying down to my home county of Devon where it was picked up on the Axe Estuary during January 2012.

Still a few dragonflies on the wing including some Southern Hawkers, one of which perched up nicely for me the other day.

Southern Hawker

Marsh Harrier

A Marsh Harrier with green wing tags has been around the area for a while, but I hadn't been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to see it. This all changed this morning however, when just after I arrived at Machynys Point to check for migrants, all nearby waders took to the air. A scan of the salt marsh quickly revealed the culprit - the Marsh Harrier.

Marsh Harrier

I moved on to the reserve, with the only migrants seen being a handful of Chiffchaff, three Wheatear on the beach and a Lesser Whitethroat on the point.

There weren't many waders on the scrapes, mainly due to it being low tide, but also perhaps because of the presence of a Peregrine.

The Little Stint was on the NRA Scrapes, and eight Curlew Sandpiper were on the Western Scrapes along with one Spotted Redshank and c.200 Knot.

Spotted Redshank

Little Stint

Then the Marsh Harrier reappeared giving at times fairly close views as it flew back and forth over the salt marsh. It was last seen flying east when it was lost to view.

Marsh Harrier

Moth trapping

I joined Barry Stewart this morning to empty his moth traps. I've never done any moth trapping before, but I've wanted to for ages, so it was good to finally have a go at it. Here are some photos.

Burnished Brass

Black Rustic

Brimstone

Acleris rhombana

Angle Shade

Acleris variegana

Flame Shoulder

Dusky Thorn

Gold Spot

Green Carpet

Pale Emerald

Pink-barred Sallow

Sallow

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Willow Beauty

Ypsolopha sequella

Little Stint

Nia and I found a Little Stint this morning, the first of the Autumn. It was always quite distant (and I didn't have my scope!) and kept hiding behind vegetation, so I was actually quite lucky to get a shot at all!

Little Stint (left), Dunlin (right)

I had found three Spotted Redshank and eight Curlew Sandpiper yesterday while doing counts, and these were still present today. Three Ruff (2m & 1f) were also present, including two new arrivals. Other counts included 807 Black-tailed Godwit, one Bar-tailed Godwit, 133 Knot, 268 Redshank, 68 Greenshank, one Common Sandpiper, 53 Dunlin, 47 Pintail, 135 Wigeon, 84 Teal and 22 Shovler.

Spotted Redshanks

Reading rings!

I payed my first visit to Burry Port today, around five miles to the west of Llanelli and at the mouth of the Loughor Estuary. Again I got distracted on the way, this time by gulls. The first ringed bird was a Black-headed Gull, white 2V19, which was ringed at a breeding colony in Gloucestershire in 2009. My recovery was its first - birders really need to look harder for ringed birds!

Black-headed Gull - white 2V19

A scan of the exposed sand banks off Llanelli gave a good count of 58 Mediterranean Gulls. Amongst the closer birds, I was able to read five rings. All from either France or Belgium. I was almost able to read a sixth Med with a red ring (from the Czech Republic), but I just can't make out the last three digits/letters.

The sand bars off Burry Port and Pembrey Harbour had 70 Sandwich Terns roosting on them with a further 15+ Mediteranian Gulls. While looking out to sea, four terns came into my field of view flying head on. As one turned its head I could see that they were 'commic' terns. They dropped in with the Sandwich Terns and I was able to see they they were Common Terns.

Common Terns

A late Sand Martin flew through with the Swallows, and three Wheatear and a Stonechat were on the harbour wall. On the beach there was a sizable flock of Ringed Plover, a few Dunlin, a juvenile Sanderling, and two Bar-tailed Godwit were with the Oystercatcher flock.

A visit to Delta Lake on the way back revealed that the Little Gull was still present. Just as I had packed up my optics ready to leave, a Whinchat popped up on some brambles right in front of me. Luckily it stayed in the same perch the whole time in took me to set my scope set up again, and I managed to get a really good shot of this lovely species.

Whinchat

Little Gull

Lesser Whitethroat close up

This morning I decided to get up early to go to the reserve via the coastal path. I had aimed to get there for around 8am but this didn't quite work out as there were lots of birds to check through on the way. These included 20+ Chiffchaff, a Willow Warbler, six Blackcap, one Whinchat, two Sedge Warblers and three Whitethroat. Overhead, there was a constant passage of Swallow totaling c100+ birds. I decided to cycle past the reserve a little way to where I had found two Lesser Whitethroat the previous day. Sure enough they were still there giving views down to a couple of metres. I was able to get some really good feather detail from some close up digiscoping. This species is definitely a contender for being my favorite warbler. I love the contrast of the whitethroat and darker eye mask which can give the impression of a grey shrike!

Lesser Whitethroat

On to the British Steel Hide, an hour later then I had planned to arrive, I quickly found three Curlew Sandpipers and a male Ruff. Two Whimbrel and 11 Bar-tailed Godwit were amongst the Curlew.

Curlew Sandpiper and Dunlin

Curlew Sandpiper

Kingfisher and record Greenshank numbers

A total of 84 Greenshank were on site today, apparently a record number for the reserve. Two Ruff were still present and a bit of scope scanning of distant bramble bushes revealed a Lesser Whitethroat, two Whitethroats, two Sedge Warblers, six Chiffchaffs and four Blackcaps.

Ruff

The Peter Scott hide overlooking the Deep Lake on the Millennium Wetlands offers fantastic opportunities to get a good Kingfisher shot. On Tuesday I got lucky when one perched up within three or four metres in perfect light. Here are the results...

Kingfisher

Whinchats

On Friday I found two Whinchats in the scrubland next to the cycle path to the east of the reserve. I expect they were the same birds, but two Whinchats were again in the same place today. These are the first record of Whinchat for the reserve for quite a while.

Whinchat and Whitethroat

Whinchats

This evening during a high tide watch, there were three Curlew Sandpipers, two Ruff (m&f), eight Dunlin, two Bar-tailed Godwit and singles of Peregrine, Whimbrel and Mediterranean Gull in front of the British Steel Hide.

Curlew Sands

I arrived in the British Steel Hide just after 9:30am when the centre opens and the visitors are let in. Another birder was already there and had found two Curlew Sandpipers.

Curlew Sandpipers

Ruff numbers have increased to three, and the Spotted Redshank was still among 130 Redshank. Other counts included 726 Black-tailed Godwit, 87 Knot and 47 Greenshank.

On Monday, an adult Mediterranean Gull was feeding on flying ants over the reserve, and on Tuesday, the two Garganey were still present on the NRA scrapes and a Clouded Yellow butterfly flew through.

Mediterranean Gull