A Rare Day

Today was meant to be my start day at my new Job at Llandegfedd but for unforeseen reasons it has been delayed. This did however give me the opportunity to catch up on a bit of birding on my local patch and it really did deliver today. Beautiful weather and some pretty rare birds. The day started with a Sparrowhawk hunting through peoples gardens on my street, followed by a displaying Goshawk, Peregrine Falcon and then stumbling onto a Firecrest that had been ringed! It's always nice finding a rare bird with a ring on its leg, hopefully I can find out where it came from. To top it off, I get two Garganey at Llandeg Reservoir and upon trying to relocate them with birding friend Craig Constance, he spots a stunning male summer plumage Black-necked Grebe! Other notables, two Female Oil Beetles, plenty of Green Tiger Beetles along with some more Spring migrants - Swallows, Sand Martins, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs. If I get the time this week I'll try get some sound recordings also, just need more hands! Difficult to do it all at the same time.. 

Have you seen a Swallow yet? If not, keep looking out for them. For some reason, every one I've seen so far has been flying south.. It would appear that some have overshot their mark and are having to make their way back down the Uk to more southern tempratures. 

Last week in the Beacons

One more week before the Job change and I'm making the most of early spring in the beacons. I am going to miss working for BBNP, they have been so great to work for. This view was ontop of the Alt Mountain overlooking Talybont and Brecon. It's a fabulous view and well worth the climb. I luckily got to go up in a quad bike however and that seemed hard enough at times! 

The Alt 

This weekend I spent most of my time in the Garden. Last year we planted lots of wild flowers to encourage wildlife and this year we've installed a pond. Something I've always wanted to do! If you don't have a pond, get one! They can be really easy to make, can even make one out of an old washing bowl if you want to, and it will encourage wildlife, damselflies, dragonflies, toads, newts and frogs ect. Can't wait to see what ends up in the pond as we live just down from the canal so I'm sure something will end up in there. In the garden I also had a visit from a Dark-edged Bee Fly, 2 weeks earlier than in previous years. April is ahead of us however and it's my favourite month of the year! So much to see and hear with birdsong in full swing. With a new Job locally, I will get more time with my camera so will hopefully pick up where I left off. 

Dark-edged Bee Fly

Gard Pond (In Progress)

Song Thrush Mimic

Song Thrush Mimic

If you like mimicking birds as much as I do, see if you can spot the Green Woodpecker impression this Song Thrush does half way through. Beautiful song that was well worth running back to the car for to get my recording gear. 

Migration

Today was a pretty incredible day for Birding in Gwent. This morning started pretty early, arriving at Blaenserchan before sunrise to get an early look at the reported Great Grey Shrike. I bumped into local ecologist Steve Williams and as we searched together for the Shrike, we were greeted instead with a pretty large flock of 150+ Brambling! This year has been terrible for Brambling with winter numbers quite below average so it was nice to see such a large flock of them, especially this late in winter. So late in-fact that our first Spring/Summer migrants are arriving on the same day! With Chiffchaff, Wheatear, White Wagtail and Sand Martin being my first spring visitors of the year. Other birds for the day, Reed Bunting, Stonechat, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Yellowhammer, Greenfinch, Green Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard and many more. 

Second evening visit, finally caught up with the Great Grey Shrike, observed for a good hour mimicking the sounds of Siskin and Redpoll, I suspect to lure them in closer for the kill. Pretty incredible birds. My favourite pic was the sun going down, just about lined it up at the top of a beach tree between the mountain in the distance. 

Spring Toads & New Job

SO! It was only six months ago that I shared the great news that I had got a Job working for the Brecon Beacons National Park, a game changer of a Job that I absolutely love! However it is only a Trainee position with no guarantee of a permanent Job at the end, so during this training I've been keeping my eyes open for other Jobs, hoping that something will come up a little closer to home. A couple months ago, Welsh Water starting advertising for Rangers at Llandegfedd Reservoir. As you'll probably know already, I love Llandegfedd! It's always been that special go-to place that fuelled my wildlife passion. So yesterday I had my interview for the Job and today you can imagine how happy I am to hear that I got the Job. If all goes smoothly in the transfer, I'll be starting in April. 

A short trip to Llandegfedd after college today and you can see why I love this place so much! There is literally Toad fall-out! and I've tried my best to capture the energy in this annual event. There were about 50 males to 4 females so you can imagine the amount of fighting going on. Sometimes you just have to fight your way to victory. 

Patching in Sunlight

Between showers we had some beautiful light today. Some would say it was even too bright at times but personally it was nice to see a bit of blue in the sky. Below, the first picture is of 'Wall Screw-moss' which is pretty common and as the name suggests, likes walls. Check your Garden wall and you may have some yourself. I took a picture of them because the morning sun lit them up beautifully and as the sun was so low in the sky, half of the wall was still in shadow, giving the image a two toned vibe. Below that is Goosander, one of two on the South Sebastopol stretch of canal. A notable sized flock of Redpoll was also feeding in the tree tops along the canal and in the wet woodland. 

Traditional Breconshire Style Hedge Laying

Traditional Breconshire Style Hedge Laying

Last week in work my colleagues and I were introduced to a true traditional -'Breconshire style'- way of hedge laying. The location was just above Llangorse Lake on the west bank on a SSSI site. We've done work in this beautiful area before so it was nice to visit again and hear all the birds in the background, including seeing two Great White Egrets that were using the flooded fields catching early spring frogs. Rather than explain everything we did, I thought I'd put a short video together showing various stages of the Hedge. If you're familiar with Hedge Laying but perhaps not with the Breconshire style, I'd highly recommend it, it has such a great finish but is also made strong and most importantly, stock proof. 

Pre-spring

Typical wet and windy weekend but still went out with the camera regardless. I love looking for signs of spring and there were plenty today even in the rain. I visited Llandegfedd, one of my favourite locations. The Great Crested Grebes have already got their spring plumage with crests getting larger every day and some are already displaying to each other.

Great Crested Grebes Courtship

Wild Primrose is flowering in the surrounding meadows, along with our native wild Daffodil which is becoming harder and harder to find in the southern parts of Wales.. I see plenty of them on the way to work in Brecon however. 

Wild Primrose

Another pre-spring sign can be found in the wintering Wildfowl that are hanging around, much like these Teal that are all squabbling over a single female, most of which are already moving north. Short video below shows them displaying to the female.

Saw my first batch of Frogspawn up the British also and with it, a Grey Heron! Haven't seen a Heron on this patch before and certainly wasn't expecting to flush one while walking through a Gorse patch. 

Frogspawn 

With new development on the cards for 'The British', its unknown at present, just how much we will retain of the wild reclaimed slag-heaps, that are proving to be great for wildlife! Who would have thought that are scarred post-industrial history would give birth to such a hospitable habitat, not just for our bird population but our Invertebrates, Flora and even our Bryophyte moss species. The site is currently used mostly by Dog Walkers and Off-road vehicles like quad bikes and scramblers, so weekends are a no go if you want to see Birds, but plants thankfully don't move and the un-touched areas of the slag-heaps are reclaimed by many species of Grass, and in this case Bryophyte, as shown in the picture below that shows a cluster of both Reindeer Moss - cladonia impexa and I think the start of Silky Wall Feather-moss - homalothecium sericeum which as its name suggests, prefers wall / rock environments, but in this case, the Coal is acting as a good alternative.  

Reindeer Moss - cladonia impexa & Silky Wall Feather-moss - homalothecium sericeum

Singing in a cloud

Not the best day for Photography with fairly thick fog covering most of Pontypool. Was hoping that going further up the mountain I may get above the fog but it was ten times worse. Didn't seem to put the birds off though and luckily for me, I brought my recording gear. 

My recording gear is perfect for days like today where visibility is poor and sound becomes a much more reliable way of picking out birds in the fog. Lucky for me I can ID them by sound alone and I picked out some notable birds today as a result of this. I heard Crossbill, Redwing, Fieldfare and a single Curlew flying in the thick fog.. which I would have missed if it wasn't for my parabolic dish. 

On the way up the mountain I checked on my local gorse patches to see if the Yellowhammers were back in song and despite being back on their breeding grounds, I only picked out a few calls, no full songs just yet. Not that recording them was even possible today with over 20 off-road vehicles ripping up the coal spoils and creating a racket. Still not sure what I think about the off-road activity there, though for the time being, it doesn't seem to effect the Yellowhammers. 

Male Yellowhammer 

The British 

Something that was quite sad and certainly does effect the Yellowhammers was the burnt Gorse patches. This particular patch did home a Yellowhammer nest last season and its now completely ruined. 

Burnt Gorse

Dunnock Song

Dunnock Song

It's been a while since I picked up my sound recording gear but it's coming up to that season so expect a lot more to come. This is a short recording of a Dunnock from Wentwood forest. You can even pick out a few calls from Crossbill in the background - especially towards the end.