Sunday, 11 January 2015

New Year

I've signed up to Patch Work Challenge this year using the WWT reserve as my patch. I'll only have until August to try and see as many species as possible, but I should be able to manage 120, and hopefully a few more.

The highlights of last week were a female Goldeneye on the estuary and four Spotted Redshank amongst the waders.

Work last week mainly consisted of cutting down dangerous trees before the high winds this week. On Friday I took a load of photos of the views from all the viewing platforms, because starting on Monday, a team of tree surgeons are coming in for a few weeks to clear all trees five metres from the waters edge all around the Deep Water Lake - a massive job! I'll take some more photos after it's finished so we can see the transformation.

Yesterday I checked Sandy Water Park. There was a sizable gull flock on the grass to the east of the lake which consisted of 12 Common Gulls, three Lesser Black-backed Gulls, but no Mediterranean Gulls. One of the Black-headed Gulls had a white ring which I think means it's from Reading. On the lake there were 11 Tufted Duck (including the ringed bird from Radipole), a Pochard, three Shoveler, five Gadwall and two Little Grebes. Three Goldcrests were with a flock of Long-tailed Tits around the lake.

Today on a visit to Swansea Bay there were two Red-throated Diver and 130+ Great Crested Grebes in the bay, with c.25 Mediterranean Gulls at Mumbles with around 20 Kittiwakes passing offshore.

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