Great Day at Baglan Bay

At present there are very large numbers of Great Crested Grebe off Aberavon Sands. Among them is a single Fem/imm type Velvet Scoter. It seems to loosely associate with the Grebes and today spent most of its time with a single raft of approx 120 Grebes. I counted 168 Great Crested Grebes in the Bay and also at least 6 Red-throated Diver and possibly 9+. The Divers were quite mobile though, often flying to different locations within the Bay. These species have been present for some time. First recorded 1/1/10 per SLM and again on 8/1/10 per ND. Also today a Great Northern Diver flew past but was lost to sight heading into Swansea Bay.
The Birds seem to favour the west end of the beach which is easily accessible from the car park off Scarlet Avenue. The nearby dunes offering a welcome vantage point from which to scan the sea. High tide is clearly the best time to look from the dunes since the birds are closer in.
Just a short walk from here the Black Redstart, mentioned in an earlier post, was still present just inside the BP perimeter fence SS727914

Great Northern Divers during November

November was a good month for Great Northern Divers with a minimum of 11 being noted around Gower. There was a maximum five in Oxwich Bay between the 20th & 24th, one off Mumbles Head on 25th (Paul Larkin), another off Dalton's Point in the Burry Inlet on the 26th [with 3 more seen on the north shore on the 28th (Bernie Beck)] and one in Prince of Wales Dock on 27th (Andrew Lucas) which was still present the next day (see photo above).

Grey Phalarope at Oxwich Marsh

This very vocal and quite mobile bird was feeding on the pools of new fen area. In the bay there was a minimum of 4 Great Northern Divers, one of which was manipulating a crab in its bill for some time.