Great Crested Grebe

It was a nice surprise this morning to see that the pair of Great Crested Grebe at Rosebush Reservoir have two young this year they look to be about a week old. As far as I am aware this is the first successful nesting attempt at Rosebush for several years.

Singing white throat above Strumble lookout.

Strumble Head & Tresinwen (28-30 May 16)

Otter on the grass verge on the Goodwick seafront on Friday evening.

Cuckoo seems to be in residence at Strumble now.

Pale morph Honey Buzzard at 11ish this morning.  Found at Seal Bay but soon circled up and drifted into the misty cloud and seemed to head towards the lighthouse.  Not seen subsequently.

Choughs were defending their territory from a pair of crows very noisy!

Several Whitethroats singing loud and clear around Strumble!

Crossbills

Two Crossbills again today at Cwm yr Eglwys feeding on pine cones.
I noticed a few Red Admirals around today also my first Beautiful Demoiselle of the year at Llanychaer.

Tresinwen & Strumble Head (21 & 22 May 16)

A Jay feeding in the fields behind the house on Sunday was a scarce sighting.  Cuckoo calling somewhere towards Good Hope.  Lots of hirundine movement over weekend.

On Saturday had a lovely, distinctive Stonechat (Euro) on the headland.  Not seen on Sunday.  Pictures below give it some justice but in flight it was black and white.  I thought at first that I had found a migrant male Pied Fly when it first appeared.

Thanks to RBA for some pointers this is defo a Euro Stonechat.  The clincher is some dark markings on the centres of the upper tail coverts.  Everything else was superficially like Siberian Stonechat, including dark auxiliaries as shown in the (very) dodgy pics.

Turtle dove St Nicholas.

Met up with Tina and Stephen Davies yesterday who had a turtle dove in their St Nicholas garden on Saturday, I asked if they were sure it was not a collared dove but they are extremely aware of them and described the neck pattern, a nice Strumblish tick!