Colour-ringed Tufted Duck!

Yesterday I went for a walk along Llanelli beach and up to Sandy Water Park. A Chiffchaff landed in a bush breifly, called once, and then flew high to the east. On the lake were a single Pochard, c.16 Shoveler and c.10 Tufted Duck. Some of the Tufted Duck were taking advantage of the almost constant feeding by members of the public that takes place in the south east corner. While scanning over them, I noticed that one had a pale yellow ring on its right leg, and when it turned I could see that it had an orange ring on the left. The colours were quite hard to judge through the water and the bird soon went behind cover. I came back today to have another look, and thankfully it was showing much better. On the left leg there was a metal ring under the orange which I hadn't noticed yesterday.

This bird was ringed at Radipole Lake in Dorset in 2007 in a study with the WWT. Twelve males were ringed that year, but even though I can make out the first five characters of the metal ring, it still isn't enough to narrow it down to an individual.

Most birds from this study seem to migrate to and from their breeding grounds in Siberia through the lower counties of England, so this bird is a little unusual in that respect. Perhaps it over shot its wintering grounds?

On Monday I saw a Bittern again as I was locking up the hides, and on Wednesday I picked up a Merlin perched up over the saltmarsh, the first I've seen here. There were good numbers of waders roosting on the Saline Lagoon with 890 Dunlin, 640 Knot, 222 Curlew, 474 Black-tailed Godwit, 17 Greenshank and three Spotted Redshank. Four Water Rail were also showing nicely from the hide.

On Thursday, we helped out catching some of the collection birds to update the records. We caught all the Red-crested Pochards and Philippine Ducks bar one which wouldn't come out of cover. In the previous week we caught all but one of the Buffleheads, despite spending an hour with five people in the pond armed with nets after just the one bird! It kept diving through the line we formed from one side to the other, and never seemed to tire.

Otter, Mink and Whimbrel

With the recent news of bird flu reaching the UK, we've all been asked to keep an extra special look out for any dead birds on the reserve. Every week we conduct a "patrol" looking for dead birds with the aim of being able to collect the bodies and take swabs. The swabs will be sent off to the lab to be analysed for any diseases, particularly avian botulism. This disease is spread through the consumption of infected maggots, so to minimize the risk we try to bury any dead mammals we find (quite a few so far - rats, rabbits and five moles!).

A few sunny spells in the middle of the week saw a few late insects on the wing - a Red Admiral on Tuesday, and a Common Darter on both Tuesday and Wednesday, with the one on Wednesday having the characteristic weak fluttery flight of a newly emerged teneral.

Common Darter

We have three mink rafts around the reserve which are basically floating platforms with an area of soft clay under a wooden tunnel for recording the footprints of any mammal in the area. We've been checking these every week since I've been working here, but for the first time yesterday I found the footprints of a mink!

Minks are obviously bad news for the local water vole population, so we put the traps out the same day in the hope that we'll catch it, but looking today, the traps were empty.

Today, we were out early doing salinity and depth readings at a number of test sites around the saline lagoon. These readings have been taken for about a year roughly once a fortnight, and we're still collecting data with the aim of leaning more about how the regular flooding from the estuary affects it. Hopefully this data may help to aid any future management strategies for the lagoon to ensure it is working at its full potential.

While we were out there we found numerous otter prints in the soft mud...

While doing a high tide bird count this evening the biggest surprise was a really late Whimbrel. Other counts include 20 Snipe, 119 Dunlin, three Spotted Redshank, 170 Wigeon, 182 Lapwing, 105 Black-tailed Godwit, 16 Greenshank and 39 Redshank.

Whimbrel

Golden Plovers and Black Redstart

As I was counting the Lapwing (124) on Tuesday, two Golden Plovers flew into my field of view low over the marsh and circled around a couple of times, gaining height, before heading off to the east. These are the first of this species that I've seen since being here, and looking back at records for the reserve, it seems like they are only ever seen in small numbers during the winter. The Great White Egret was also present on this morning, showing close in front of the hide.

The other highlight of the week was a Black Redstart that flew in and landed on a wall right in front of my front door as I was waiting to set off to work in the morning sun. Risking looking a bit weird to the neighbours, I pointed my camera to the roof tops and managed to get a few shots. The white wing patch means this bird is a first winter male.

Black Redstart

Later in the morning I saw a high flying flock of Black-headed Gulls. I've never seen BHGs flying in such an obvious V-formation before.

Black-headed Gulls

The week's work was mainly made up of odd jobs, but on Friday we did some coppicing and pollarding either side of a stretch of path that's used for bird ringing in the spring and summer as part of the Constant Effort Scheme. This will hopefully create a lower denser area of branches no higher than the nets, so that we'll catch more birds. I can't wait to start doing some ringing!

Bittern on WeBS count

This morning I did what was probably the best WeBS count I've ever done. I got to the British Steel hide just as the sun was rising. The tide was pretty high breaking over the banks of the saline lagoon and flooding the roost islands. I managed good counts of all birds except for Knot with only 65 logged. Hopefully the other 200+ will have been picked up by another counter on the estuary!

Other totals include five Spotted Redshank, 22 Greenshank, 300 Redshank, 658 Black-tailed Godwit, one Bar-tailed Godwit, 415 Curlew, 66 Dunlin, 95 Lapwing, 185 Wigeon and 23 Teal. Scanning across the flooded saltmarsh, I came across the Great White Egret standing more than twice the height of the nearby Little Egrets.

On to the other side of the reserve, the Millennium Wetlands. I started off at the Peter Scott hide where just as I'd finished counting, the first Bittern of the winter flew up from close to the channel we cleared out earlier this week and flew away from me over the Deep Lake. Although, brief, I got a really good view of this amazing species, but no photo because my camera was in my bag.
Other birds which I missed this morning were a Marsh Harrier (not the wing tagged bird), a Merlin and a Mandarin Duck.

Last fortnight

Sunset over the Burry Inlet.

The birding has been pretty slow over the last couple of weeks. I'd have thought that with all the strong winds coming up the estuary, we might have had a phalarope or two on the saline lagoon. Or with all the time I've been spending doing work around woodland, and being in almost constant presence of tit flocks I might have been lucky enough to find a yellow-browed warbler. But no, not even a firecrest!


Peak wader and wildfowl counts over the last two weeks have included 661 Black-tailed Godwit, 415 Curlew, 258 Knot, five Spotted Redshank, 351 Redshank, 29 Greenshank, 106 Lapwing, 19 Dunlin, two Grey Plover, five Snipe, 126 Wigeon, 104 Teal, 42 Tufted Duck, 53 Shoveler, 55 Pintail, 141 Gadwall, two Pochard, six Little Grebe and a Mediterranean Gull.

Over the last few weeks we've been doing a lot of work strimming and clearing away scrub from the path verges to increase the plant diversity and to prevent encroachment of bramble. I'm looking forward to the various orchids that we'll be seeing in the spring. We've put the cut vegetation to good use by using it to make reptile and amphibian habitats around the site. These include a base layer of logs to provide cavities for grass snakes to lay their eggs in, and a thick layer of the cut vegetation to provide insulation. We've also placed rubber mats and sheets of corrugated iron nearby for snakes to warm themselves, and logs have been leant up against the sides of the structure to give lizards a place to sun themselves.

Another job carried out earlier in the week was the clearance of a 60 metre long channel in front of the Peter Scott hide. This involved wearing chest waders and immersing ourselves up to our waists in thick silt and a tangle of reedmace roots, the reedmace being the main plant that we were pulling up.

Once the trees are cut down on this island it should look a lot better and perhaps attract a bittern in - I've got my fingers crossed!

I'll finish this post off with this lovely drinker moth catapillar that I found on Wednesday sunning itself on a leaf. This is a species of moth that overwinters as a larvae before pupating in the spring. I'm not sure if this one has come out of hibernation to feed, or whether it hasn't actually gone into hibernation yet, perhaps not surprising given the warm end to the year? Also in the area were three Chiffchaff; a good number for this time of year.

Drinker moth caterpillar