News Update (The Hills are Alive) (Llandegfedd Meeting)

 have good news! Last week I had a meeting with Veronika Brannovic from the Gwent Wildlife Trust regarding plans for a new project starting this year. The project will be called 'The Hills are Alive' (With the sound of Music!).. Those that know my background will at this point be quite excited for me as this project is pretty much tailer made! On that note, the outcome of the meeting was in fact a Job! Finally a Job that I can put all my knowledge with sound to good use. The Hills are Alive project has the aim to banish the idea that our upland habitats are baron land and bereft of wildlife and we will be approaching this from 2 different perspectives; Sound & Photography. My Job will be to teach people (mostly the younger generation) how to record the wildlife of our uplands. This is a huge task because the reason why people have this perception that the uplands is empty, is because the wildlife for the most part is very good at hiding. Not only that, the weather on the uplands can be quite extreme and even at the best of times, wind noise always plays a factor with sound recording. So, we have to approach it professionally and with the right equipment so the next step will be to gear up and prepare for everything. I'm very excited for this project to start! It will only be 1-2 days a week but that also means I can carry on with my current Job so win win. 

In other news, next week I have an important meeting with Welsh Water regarding Llandegfedd. The meeting came about after I expressed my concerns via email about the health and safety of both people and the wildlife onsite. In this email I offered a solution to solve all these problems and that involves bringing a Trust like the Wildlife Trust onboard to manage the ecological requirements at the North side. On that note, I saw the opportunity to invite Veronika Brannovic from GWT to the meeting also so that she could give factual information as to what the WT could offer if such a partnership commenced. I am super excited about this meeting and really hope that the outcome is beneficial for all and not just the narrow slopped path that Llandegfedd is currently taking. 

Ebbwvale Owl Sanctuary & Llandegfedd

With a short trip to the Owl Sanctuary to keep the girl friend happy we thought we'd had our Owl fix of the day, until we got back to Llandegfedd where we were greeted by this years Tawny Owl chick at the entrance of our nest box. That is the second year in a row that the box has only produced only 1 chick and I think that might be down to the general shape of the box. Modern tawny owl boxes are designed with extra room to accommodate a larger clutch because, when faced with small living quarters, owl chicks have a tendency to eat the smaller chick so that it has a better chance of survival and therefor a quicker growth rate with 2 parents feeding fewer chicks. 

In the last couple days, Llandegfedd has produced some great birds with another Osprey sighting (very late recording) and also a very tired Whimbrel on the North banks (Both spotted by local Birder Craig Constance). 

In other news, I spoke this month about our small numbers of breeding Mandarin at Llandegfedd but till this date, I hadn't really got photographic evidence of breeding.. until now! This female Mandarin was spotted with 5 chicks just off the Fishermans car park. 
Reed Warblers seem to have bumped up a little in numbers with 3 males singing. 

Fishing with Paul Joy @ Garnffrwd Fishery

Good friend of mine Paul Joy invited me along to Garnffrwd for a day of photography on the lake side. It was an amazing location full of wildlife that saw my first Damselflies of the year and enjoyed the company of Watervowl's, Bank Voles and lots more. I'd highly recommend this fishery! It has everything you need for a full days worth of fishing with refreshments and food right next to the waterside and the facilities are top quality with extra efforts put into the health and safety of the fish (like cross water contamination)

Llandegfedd / Sebastopol Patch Work

Both of my local patches are producing the goods with amazing scenery and spring colours! The Heronry at Llandegfedd looks to have had another successful year. In Sebastopol I've recording a new species of Bird for that patch called a 'Whitethroat' with 2 pairs present in the hedgerows. This is another species that we can add to the list of species effected by the development plans that will soon take place there. 

Blaenavon Ft Cuckoo, Yellowhammer, Tree Pipit and Minotaur Beetle

Despite it being cloudy for the majority of the trip, the wildlife showed really well! I didn't think I'd be taking full frame shots today but that is exactly what you need when the sun isn't out. It is Cuckoo mad up the Blorenge right now and boy, do the Pipits know about it! They actively attack any cuckoo without sight as they defend their nests which will likely already have eggs in, maybe even chicks in some. The Yellowhammer wasn't on the photography list today but you just have to lap up what is presented to you and this guy was singing like a trooper and feeding pretty close to the car so we didn't even have to move! Upon walking the valley, Tom Whinstone (photography friend) and I almost stepped on this large beetle which turned out to be a Minotaur Beetle. This beetle is our very own equivalent of a Dung Beetle and it does exactly the same as a dung beetle by rolling up balls of dung and dragging/pushing it down a hole which will end up being the home for their young and the next generation of Minotaur Beetles. They are absolutely fascinating beetles and well worth me making a fuss about them. 

South Sebastopol Patch Rewards

When you live busy lives, it can be nearly impossible to slow down enough to appreciate nature. Luckily for me I have a canal at the top of my street to quickly engage with wildlife and the sounds of nature. That said, it still takes me a good 5-10 minutes to get in tune with the pace you need to walk at to absorb everything you are hearing. You often miss out on great opportunities just because your full of adrenaline and not paying attention to the details. The reason I'm saying this is because today was a perfect example of the reward of patience and observation as I caught onto the sound of a group of Long-tailed Tits just off the canal path in sebastopol in the woodland opposite my house. I followed the sound carefully because I knew what could have been waiting for me if I did find the source and there it was! 10 baby Long-tailed Tits in a row being fed by their parents and falling asleep between feeds. I hunkered down in the bush as not to disturb them and observed them for as long as I could without disturbance. It was great seeing the parents trying to work out which chick they hadn't fed yet and also see that despite being able to fly, they chose to huddle up like that to keep warm and safe. LTT do this at night to sleep and with a large set of chicks like this you can expect to see up to 20 individuals cuddled up to keep warm. It is an incredible sight to see and so charismatic. 

In other news, I finally came about the terrapin that has been sighted on the Canal for many years. 1 of many i'm sure! It would be interesting to know how these animals have survived and also if they have an effect on our native wildlife/plants. I haven't seen them in huge numbers before so have no reason to believe that they are of threat to our native ecosystem but, that isn't enough to go on and a study should really be done. 

I personally loved seeing the terrapin.. They are beautiful creatures but, if they are harming the environment, something should be done about

For the sake of convenience I tend to stick to the North side of Llandegfedd via the Fishermans Car Park as it gives me access to more hides and usually more wildlife. The last 2 trips however have been pretty bleak so today I went on a bit of an adventure to parts of Llandegfedd that remain fairly quiet. I've marked on a map the exact walk I did with crosses on the access points. Once you get to bill smiths bay looking at Petingale Wood, you really are dropped into the wilderness with no signs of human activity. As a result, breeding birds have used this secluded part of Llandegfedd for years and it currently holds one of the largest Heronry and Cormorant nesting sites in Wales. It is very surreal looking at so many huge birds in a tree. The chicks are well along their growth cycle now and a pair of Ravens were present ready to lap up any remaining food that the parents bring back.  We also have very small numbers of Mandarin breeding but I didn't look for the nesting site and wouldn't want to publicise that anyway as this is fairly new for Llandegfedd and their numbers aren't great despite being on the increase in Gwent. A Hobby was also seen towards the end of my trip near the road side on Glascoed Lane, a Whitethroat showed briefly and also heard a Redstart calling (which is great news after last years failure to return to a previously successful nest box). Also nice to see a Reed Bunting back on breeding territory after last years poor numbers onsite. If you've followed activity on the Llandegfedd Wildlife Page on facebook, you would have noticed a post about a Blackbirds nest in the memorial hide. Well, safe to say by the picture below that they have grown quite a bit since I last saw them and thankfully all 3 are still in the nest. Not long before fledging though and then they were face the true challenge of the outdoors. 

House Sparrow Update

We've had some bad weather the last couple of days and with it, perhaps some chicks getting a little frightened by the wind and rain causing them to fledge early. As a result, I was tagged in a post on Facebook relating to a House Sparrow Chick that had fallen down their chimney. 

Firstly they tried putting it back in the nest but it ended up falling down the chimney again so I stepped in and took on responsibility of the bird.

Ideally, I would have loved to have been able to just release the bird there and then to it's parents that were most likely in a hedgerow near by but, the bird wasn't quite ready to fledge and only just starting to flap its wings. With bad weather, I didn't want to expose it to the elements so I fed it myself for 2 days straight. It ate over 50 wax worms (Caterpillars) and lots of other supplements which really helped it grow and pushed it to the stage where it could fly from one side of the room to the other. During this time, I had been exposing the bird in a cage to my local House Sparrows to see what their reaction would be and it looked very positive with both male and female adult House Sparrows coming over to try and feed it. As soon as there was a break in the weather, I released the bird in my neighbours garden which has plenty of exotic plants and hedges for it to take refuge in while the house sparrow colony can get used to its call and hopefully take it on as one of their own. Having checked the next day, it looked like the chick had been taken to a new location as it was nowhere to be found. I'll be keeping an eye out for it in my local house sparrow colony and can only hope that it survives. There wasn't much else I could really do. 

Hamm Wall Nature Reserve (Bittern)

Great trip to Hamm Wall today with the better half, didn't take long before we were into a flying Bittern followed by many other booming around the reserve. Several Great White Egret were on the reserve flying around in pairs (good sign of breeding). I lost count with the amount of Hobby lapping up the early Dragonflies and rising insects. We watched 3 on a single patch for an hour hunting. We also heard a few Marsh Frogs around the reserve! Another first for me! 

Rare Start

What a fantastic start to the month! If you're a birder, you'll probably notice the picture below of a Firecrest! This is my first time ever seeing a Firecrest and that is mainly down to them being so rare! They are so rare that they are a Scheduled 1 Breeding bird in the UK and highly protected at they're nesting sites so I quickly got an ID photo and swiftly moved on. The location is of course going to be kept private for the reasons mentioned above. In other news, Pied Flycatchers look to be having another good year but lets hope the bad weather ahead doesn't effect they're breeding too much. Pied Flycatchers only have 1 clutch in the time they are here so the weather really does play a massive part in the success of they're breeding season. Other birds showed well - Wood Warbler, Whinchat, Sedge Warbler and Whitethroat.

Pontypool Uplands

Great finish to April! Ended with Pieds nest building, new found insects in the form of a female Oil Beetle and a Redkite flying over Pontypool!Be sure to check out next months blog as I have lots instore for you this month too! Hope you've enjoyed April as much as I have.