Tresinwen & Strumble (31 Jan 16)

Nice Shag fishing off Porthsychan yesterday.  Pic below.

Coal Tit in the garden today - seems to be hoarding food somewhere on the farm.  Either that or it is binge eating!

Red Kite earlier over St Nicholas.

Strumble stuff

Lots of divers around in the past week or two mostly too far out to id to species.A Stonechat was a nice sighting as they have been thin on the ground recently!  Ken Barnett captured this rather nice Bonxie flying by on Wednesday the 27th, along with some porpoises!

Divers and Firecrest

In Fishguard Harbour this afternoon 4 Great Northern Divers and 3 Red-throated.
At Dinas Cross a Firecrest.

Fishguard Harbour 21st Jan.

In the Stena side roost which was predominantly Black Headed Gulls at least 2 Adult, 2 x 2nd Winter & a single 1st Winter Mediterranean Gulls.
The Jackdaw roost which collects in the trees by Harbour Village quite spectacular this evening numbering in the hundreds.

Birdy day at Strumble...

Recently the sea mammals at Strumble have been taking centre stage but today with perfect conditions (gentle if cold SSE  breeze and sunshine) we worked hard for a few porpoises.
However on the way in I spooked a female Kestrel off a roadside fence post which took up position on another just across the field.

Scanning out to sea searching for finds was less rewarding but a steady movement of divers mainly heading west was nice to see

Not great pic's due to distance and incompetence but they give a flavour and over an hour and a half in the morning I clocked 14 passing by 13 west, 1 east and odd ones on the water.There wera about twenty Scoter heading west, only one gannet also a steady too-ing and fro-ing of skeins of Auks as well as parties of mainly Black Headed but also a  fair smattering of \Common Gulls,

Kittiwakes and Fulmers being significant by their almost total absence! Only a single Gannet was seen but scruffy parties of mainly immature gulls wer seen following the porpoises but only when they started feeding with a certain amount of splashing. 

To see a Herring Gull dive in among some feeding porpoises and grab a fish about six to eight inches long confirmed my impression that they do actually (at least occasionally) profit from this practice!...The profit was a false one though. as a chase ensued and the Greater Black Back pair eventually out maneuvered it within a swarm of lesser gulls and pinched the catch!

Bit of a Tour.

Started off intending to do the gull roost at Abermawr, birds were very distant but did have a Red Throated Diver in the bay & a group of Fulmars squabbling over something a bit further out.


Then left the comfort of the Home Patch & travelled to the outskirts of the city to the Dowrog where a Male Hen Harrier showed 3 times but apart from a group of 5 noisy Snipe over that was it.


Last call was Llangloffan bridge ( Just back in the patch ) where the hoped for species didn't show but in the time I was there a more or less constant procession of more noisy Snipe. 

Fishguard Fort

Off the fort this afternoon 3 Great Northern Divers and 2 Great Crested Grebes