Black-tailed Godwits on the move

By the 4^thJuly the Black-tailed Godwit flock at Penclacwydd WWT had increased to 236 with the following four colour-ringed birds noted by Wendell Thomas:

  L: Green/Red, R: Lime/Red

  L: Lime/Red, R: Green/Red flag

  L: White/Orange, R: Orange/Red

  L: Orange/Yellow, R: Orange flag/Yellow

Details of LR-GRf were received yesterday that reveal it was ringed in north-east Iceland on 10^th July 2009. It has spent every subsequent winter at Pontevedra, Galicia in NW Spain, Wendell’s sighting being the first away from this locality. All colour-ringed sightings of Black-tailed Godwits seen at WWT are shown above with LR-GRf shown by the thicker yellow line. Still awaiting details of the other three.

Spoonbill at Penclacwydd

Spoonbill "yawning?"

The immature Spoonbill was still at Penclacwydd WWT this afternoon. While I was there the it spent 99.9% of the time asleep, luckily for me when it did raise it's head the Avocet was in the background. Happy days...

Seasonal Ducks at WWT

Two shots taken by Rob Taylor of two scarce ducks that appeared on The Lagoon at Llanelli WWT over the weekend:

Male Smew 6th May (c) R.H.A. Taylor

Spring records of this winter visitor are unusual and as doubts about the origins of any out of season duck are always raised, it will be interesting to see if it appears elsewhere over the next days or weeks? Behaviour is always helpful in deciding; in its favour, it does not appear to have hung around long either at Llanelli or in Gwent, assuming it was the same bird seen here a day or two before?

Male Garganey 7th May (c) R.H.A. Taylor

Another handsome duck is the Garganey which regularly turns up in spring in small numbers. At least three birds appeared in South Wales on the 7th, so there's no doubt this is the real McCoy.

Avocets arrive at WWT

The 'pair'

The 'loner'

Three Avocets appeared on the saline lagoon today, leading to speculation that they may stay and breed. Other birds of note seen included Short-eared Owl, Pink-footed Goose, Brent Goose, 14 Whimbrel and 6 Greenland Wheatears.

Confused female Shelduck after dropping an egg!

The real McCoy

After last month's pretender (http://goweros.blogspot.com/2010/01/almost-goodie.html), it was good to see the genuine article at WWT today, this being the bird found yesterday by Joek Roex. This is now the third record at the Llanelli centre, the others both being spring birds in 2003 and 2008. Hopefully this bird will stray across the border, so worth checking Penclawdd Pill next time you're passing!

Yet another Bittern!

A different Bittern to the one seen at WWT Llanelli on Monday (pics below) was sadly found dead in the Millennium Wetlands today. The map above shows all records relevant for the winter atlas at absolute (red dots) and tetrad (open squares) levels. It is likely that a minimum of 9 birds have been recorded in the area shown by the map since 1st January (red dots centred black - click on map for higher resolution), which is quite a total! ...and still time for more...

Another day another Bittern!

Technically this one's not in the Gower area, but it is only just outside and it's not often you get views this good!
Photographed from the British Steel Hide at WWT Llanelli this morning. A new adult Spoonbill was also present.

Black-tailed Godwits at Dalton's Point

Black-tailed Godwit [Lime/Red Lime/Red flag], was today seen feeding off Dalton's Point in a flock of 140 birds. It was ringed as a chick on 02-Jul-09 at Reykholar, ICELAND and has been present in Burry since 01-Sep-09, though this is the first time I have seen it on the south side of the estuary. Ringing recoveries indicate that most Black-tailed Godwits we see here breed in Icelandic.