Saturday 31 December 2016

Fishguard Harbour 15.00 New Years Eve !

A walk along the Inner Breakwater earlier, a very large number of gulls the huge majority Black Headed with 4 Adult Meds a single Common & a few Herring. Waders include a few Curlew & Redshank & a very distant probable Greenshank over towards the fishermans quay. Will check that out tomorrow, be very handy for 2017 list !

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL, HOPE TO SEE YOU IN THE LOOKOUT IN 2017.

Monday 26 December 2016

Strumble Head (26 Dec 16)

Barn Owl hunting (c.4pm) in the fields below Tai Bach.  Peregrine showing again around the mountain.

Sunday 25 December 2016

Strumble & Tresinwen (25 Dec 16)

Short watch (bins only) this morning produced a Great Northern Diver, a pair of Wigeon and a Turnstone on the rocks.  Lots of Kittiwake, Guillemot and Razorbill fishing just off the lighthouse island.  A handful of Gannets further out and a fair few Fulmar.

Headland generally quiet but nice to see a Coal Tit in the garden when I got back in.

Saturday 24 December 2016

Strumble Roll Call 2016.

Merry Christmas & a Happy & Seabird filled New Year for 2017.

Special Thanks to all who continue to contribute information from Strumble & the Local area, from the list of the main contributors on the right & many others including:

Chris Greyall
Richard Davies
Red Liford
Paul Grennard
Brian Southern
Peter Murray
Simon Murray
Paul Mahiques
Mervyn Jones
John Faithfull
Mick Locke
Mark Hipkin
Rob Jones
Graham Powell

SeaTrust Team
Teifi Ringing Group ( Storm Petrel Ringing )

Apologies to anyone I have missed & those who's names I don't know.

Friday 23 December 2016

Strumble Head 23rd Dec 2016.

Time: 08.00 - 12.00
Weather: Changeable
Wind: S/SSW 6 - 7

Common Scoter - 4 ( 2 pairs )
Red Throated Diver - 2
Great Northern Diver - 1
Fulmar - 23
Manx Shearwater - 1 ( Surely the last of the year ! )
Lapwing - 1 ( STRUMBLE MEGA )
Bonxie - 1

Many Thanks to Chris Grayell for the information.

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Fishguard harbour Outer Breakwater 20th Dec.

Myself & Walrus had a short & uncomfortable visit earlier, still no Purple sandpipers but a relatively close Great Northern Diver was a bonus.

Monday 19 December 2016

Merlin

There was a Merlin on Dinas Mountain this morning and around 70 Golden Plover.
From Fishguard Fort a single Great Northern Diver and 3 Red throated Divers.

Saturday 17 December 2016

Flagpoles 15.00 17th December.

A metal ringed Adult Med. Gull was the main bird of interest with a female Stonechat on the beach side of the road & a few Rock Pipits. With Goodwick United & one of the Seagulls Rugby teams at home little point on seeing if anything was lurking about that end of the Moor. 

Thursday 15 December 2016

Cattle Egret Goodwick Moor 15th Dec 2016.

Adrian,

Here's the shots of the Egret. Due to poor light ISO very high so don't look too closely as heavy graining evident. I've cleared it up as best I can and they should be passable. It was the day before you posted about it that I saw an Egret coming in off the sea at Strumble being mobbed by three herring gulls. It was around mid morning time and the weather was quite overcast at the time with the wind from the SSE if I remember correctly.

Hope these are OK for you

Ken

The pics look mighty fine to me & clears up the confusion nicely I think. ( Adrian )









Wednesday 14 December 2016

Hundreds and thousands!

I guess in a way bird-wise nothing much to shout about at Strumble in the way of rarities although I thought this gull might be worth a bit of examination by someone more into gulls than me!


Anyhow we usually a few overwintering or passing divers but they have been few and far between so far this winter.

The winter gull flock is pretty impressive, feeding out beyond main the tidal race. in a long ribbon continuing over a couple of miles or more.

                                     

 They seem to stretch way past our view and into Fishguard Bay . I counted a slice of 100 and then divided what I could see into similar slices coming up with a total of over 2,000 birds  mainly Black Headed gulls but there were also lots of Auks on the water with a steady stream of birds flying in from the west to join them!

Tuesday 6 December 2016

Goodwick 6th Dec 2016. ( Nitemare ! )

Walked Bella down to Goodwick & jokingly said to Carole " Not going to take the camera cos if I do the Firecrest ( Which I had a few days earlier ) won't show ".
Reached the part of the path where it comes out by The Seagulls Rugby Pitch & low & behold there's a noticeable White Bird at the other end of the pitch, Interesting I thought.
Raised the bins & looked at the bird, Egret obviously, check the beak, pale Yellow, checked again, definitely Yellow, size not Heron size ....Cattle Egret.
Spent the next minute ( I know, glasses at home ) putting out my group text, look up & yes, it's gone with seconds later a very nice man with his dog coming along the path saying " Did you see that bird it was an Egret, it flew off towards the Moor ". Fortunately seconds later it appeared above us, must have just set down close by for a minute & appeared to fly off to back end of Moor. While speaking to someone on the phone a minute later the bird appeared & flew to another area on the moor &  then flew again & appeared to fly out of view to the Southwest. ( Nitemare 2 )
Walked across to the Flagpoles & there's an Egret, put the text out again ( it's back ), look at the bird, it's a Little Egret. ( Nitemare 3 but regular at Flagpoles ). I'll leave it up to anyone who is remotely interested to form their own opinion, but his sort of situation doesn't bode well for claiming a record.

The Firecrest didn't show either !
    

Friday 2 December 2016

Distant Divers

Only birds of note today during our porp watch (phenomenal numbers and Risso's) two Great Northern Divers about a mile away!

Drim to Goodwick Parrog 2nd Dec.

Lots of Thrushes, a Jay, a Water Rail in a small stream about half way along. On the Rugby Pitch more Thrushes including 2 Redwing & a few Oystercatcher with 2 Redshank in tow.
On the beach at the Parrog at the Ocean Lab end a freshly washed up quite large Jellyfish. Bella very kindly poses to give some idea of size !

Thursday 1 December 2016

Flagpoles 15.00 1st Dec.

Approx 400 gulls congregated, quite a few Common Gull now & 3 Adult Meds.
In the garden, 2 Marsh Tits around but looks like only one visiting the feeders.

Some Strumble Birds from today



There were hundreds if not thousands of gulls, (mainly black headed) feeding in and outside of the tide race but the only birds of note was this fly by Diver above  (BT I thought but a bit distant) and below five scoter four males closely followed by a guillemot.



 This Extremely Pale Buzzard is a bird I have seen a couple of times over the past few months but only now managed to get a shot of . Its obviously camera shy!