Not all about Birds!.. today at-least

Despite having a fantastic day for Birds today with great company from local Bird ringer Steve Carter, I have to admit, the insect and plant life stole the show for me. Especially after finding two firsts, in the form of a Green Hairstreak Butterfly and a Fairy Longhorn Moth, both of which are extremely small but make up for their size in sheer beauty! Both were also found on 'The British', one of the many lost and forgotten sites in the valleys that continues to surprise me. How lucky we are to have such places on our doorstep. I only wished more people could appreciate it as this site also so happens to be heavily abused and vandalised by locals.

 

Yellow Archangel 

Green Hairstreak Butterfly

Fairy Longhorn Moth

Beautiful Demoiselle 

Beautiful Demoiselle 

The British

What a place! Can't believe they want to build houses here.. Had some great birds on the british, with Red Grouse, Reed Bunting, Redstart, Wheatear, Cuckoo, Wood Warbler and a Ringed Whinchat that appears to be one of Steven Smiths birds from Blaenavon. Whinchats are fresh in from Africa at the moment so it will be interesting to see if this particular Bird will carry on moving back to its breeding grounds from which it was born, or whether it will hold a new territory nearby. Either way, what a great success story. If we can possible catch the  bird or get a better photo of the ring, we will be able to find out exactly how old this bird is. 

Towards the evening I stopped off at Llandegfedd, just before we were hit by a hail storm, only to find lots of Orange-tips pairing up. <3 Love is in the air. 

Tawny Owls

Started new Job at Llandegfedd today but still managed to find some time with the camera after work to photograph a friends local Tawny Owl. What a fantastic Bird to have nesting in your chimney pot! This is the adult female and I've been told that sometimes both parents perch out to keep watch. It probably gets quite hot and cramped in there, even more so when the chicks get bigger i bet! I suspect they'll be getting some fluffy white chicks out on the ledge pretty soon. When that happens the Parents may have to find a new perch for themselves. 

Colourless Wild Flowers

What you may not know about me is, I'm actually colourblind. Contrary to popular belief, that doesn't mean I cannot see colour. My form of colourblindness makes me less sensitive to Reds and more sensitive to Greens. Theres no wonder that my favourite colour is Green right? 
Growing up, colourblindness did actually affect my life, especially during my Art classes. I tend to always favour drawing without colour entirely, simply because I would sometimes colour the Sun green and the sea purple without even knowing. It was frustrating, especially when my Art GCSE results came back pretty poorly.. Something that came as a massive shock to me and my family.. 

It certainly doesn't affect my birding, but may affect my photography, especially when editing photographs of flowers: something I actively avoid for fear of making it look like something it shouldn't. Below are some wild flowers that I've photographed at Llandegfedd so far this year. Starting with Cowslip, Bugle, Ferns and lastly a Red Campion. I see these flowers completely different to you, unless of course you have the same colourblindness as me? 

While we're on this topic, I've actually decided to do something about my colourblindness, thanks to a company called 'Enchroma':  They've managed to design a lens that corrects colourblindness! All while protecting my very sensitive green eyes from UV rays. (Something I've also struggled with in bright light). They aren't cheap, but it's worth the shot. I can't imagine what it must be like to experience the full spectrum of colour and hopefully I can edit my photographs to their full potential if the glasses work. If they work that well.. I may want to edit all my photographs from scratch.. but lets not get ahead of myself just yet. 

The Island

The Island

Llandegfedd & Local News

News

Firstly some good news! After much hard work from local supporters and our local ecologist Steve Williams, Torfaen Council Refused the proposal for the development at Tirpentwys Quarry. I'm so happy about this decision and I hope that it doesn't get appealed in the future. I'm not sure on what basis the plans were refused yet, but I assume it was based around the proposed access route which would have required a corridor of between 25 and 30 metres of vegetation to be removed and resulted in a loss of approximately three hectares of ancient woodland. Personally, the sites biodiversity alone should have held its own. Read more about it

Birds

Local patches have really been producing the goods this week with the cold northernly winds holding migration up. We've had thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Swallows and Sand / House Martins feeding at Llandegfedd, along with 2 Wheatear,  2 Yellow Wagtail, 1 Firecrest and a lingering Egyptian Goose. Short trip to the Wetlands resulting in similar activities with Common Whitethroat & Lesser Whitethroat aplenty. Bearded Reedlings were whizzing around with Sedge & Reed Warbler filling the reeds with their scratchy songs.   

Insects

The first Hairy Dragonflies of the year are emerging, picked up on the board walk alongside the visitors centre in the tops of the hedgerows. Apologies for the terrible record shot. Green-veined and Orange-tip Butterflies were also feeding / hiding away from the cold along the tall hedgerows. I hope you like my Green Tiger Beetle shot, I was particularly happy with it but still wish I had a macro lens. 

What you really come here for ;) The Photos

Forest Farm

Our Leopard Gecko 'Maze' had to undergo surgery yesterday in Cardiff to remove undeveloped eggs, having suffered from a disease called Follicular Stasis. Happy to report that the surgery went well and she's now in recovery which may take some time. Unfortunately Lizards, Gecko's and pretty much anything with scales, don't quite heal as well as mammals so she'l need the stitches out and will need a lot of monitoring over the next 6 weeks. I'll keep you updated in future blogs on her progress. 

Maze

While Maze was awaiting surgery, I had a lot of hours to kill, so rather than travel all the home, I had a day in Cardiff. Lucky I brought my camera with me as I didn't end up picking Maze up till 8pm. I spent a few hours at Forest Farm, a cherished nature reserve that many people love due to its very tame wildlife. This is a fantastic spot with 3 hides setup slightly different and offering completely different species to observe. Kingfishers are usually very obliging but they are currently breeding so use the ponds less at this time of year. Plenty of other visitors to keep me occupied with a Heron fishing for 3 hours straight, picking out small fish. Lots of baby Rabbits emerged from the hedgerows too and the cuteness levels hit the roof. Many people feed the animals at FF so I had lots of Grey Squirrels popping their heads into the hide wanting food and I had both a Robin and Great Tit feeding out of my hand, even though I didn't have anything to offer them. (Mistake of the day). Also at FF I heard a Grasshopper Warbler! A first for me! And as far as I know, possibly a first for FF? I'll have to find that out. I had an Early Mining Bee, totally high on pollen and could barely fly it was that loaded up - This gave me opportunity to snap quite a few photos, though I wished I had a macro lens, I did as best as I could with my 100-400mk ii. 

My favourite image of the day though had to be the Feral Pigeon. A bird that many people disregard in their birding life as they are extremely Common and found in places most birders try to get far away from. Personally though, I love them! They bring meaning to what would otherwise be a concrete, lifeless wasteland. And how beautiful are they?! I'm colourblind and even I can see how beautiful those colours are, if only absent in the Reds. I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of the photos. Nobody has probably read this far anyway and if you did, I appreciate your time. 

Pied Flycatchers

Returning in 'decent' numbers so far this year are our locally scarce Pied Flycatchers, with only a hand full of breeding pairs left in Gwent. I typically pick them up on spring /  winter passage at places like Llandegfedd Reservoir, along rivers, canals and streams. Water does seem to attract them, most likely due to the large hatches of flies and insects also attracted to water. They aren't always associated with water though with some taking to woodland surrounding farmland - lots of cattle, lots of flies, therefor a good substitute. Most importantly for Pied Flycatchers however are our broadleaf woodland, preferably ancient woodland as they need generations of woodpecker holes and naturally formed holes in trees for which they like to nest in. Ancient woodland should be a continuing, never ending life cycle that should always be there, forever having tree's slightly younger to grow old and take their place, continuing to provide for nature and the planet. I see birds like Pied Flycatchers as indicators of a healthy woodland and there is much we could learn about our broadleaf woodland, just by studying Pied Flycatcher distributions. 

Male Pied Flycatcher, still waiting for a female&nbsp;

Male Pied Flycatcher, still waiting for a female 

Wondering

Beech Tree Sapling 

Hope everyone is enjoying their easter break? I don't have too much to share with you today other than a few mysteries / firsts. This plant was a complete mystery plant for me at first. I even had to 'phone a friend' (Mike Kilner) who told me straight away what it was and it was not what I was expecting! I thought it was the start of Moonwort type of plant initially but turns out its just a Beech Tree Sapling.. Learn something new everyday! 

Bloody-nosed Beetle Larvae

Another species that stumped me was this Beetle Larvae. I knew it was one of our larger beetle species and looking at the general form / shape of this Larvae, I would have put money on it being an Oil Beetle, but turns out its the more common (but equally as interesting) Bloody-nosed Beetle. 

Other notables were my first local breeding pair of Crossbill (!!), my first Orange-tip Butterflies of the year and 3 Common Sandpipers at Llandegfedd. Not rare birds, but it's always nice to get waders at Llandegfedd, especially in this day and age.

Chiffchaff

A sound you won't forget! Despite it being very simplistic, I never get bored of it. Take a closer listen and if you're sharp, you'll hear that it isn't repeating the same pattern, it constantly changes in a linear fashion. 

Blaenserchan - Black Redstart

Today I visited most of my local wild spaces and spent a fair few hours in the Blaenserchan Valley in search of Common Lizards. I did find some, 7 in-fact, but they were proving extremely difficult to find on this hot day. Usually you find them basking in the sun in the morning and evenings but it was so warm, they were disbursed all over the mountain in amongst the bracken.. Don't know if you've ever seen a Common Lizard in a mountain full of bracken but it literally is like finding a needle in a hay-stack. I came prepared for it however, even brought my chair along as I know, once you find one, you have to gain their trust by sitting and waiting until they realise you aren't going to hurt them. I got so close I could have reach out and touched a few. Blaenserchan was so good today, it brought me a 'lifer' in the form of a female Black Redstart! - Thanks to birding friend Tim Griffiths for that one as I surely would have missed it with my head stuck in the bracken looking for Lizards. I also found a Yellowhammer in the valley which I personally haven't seen there before. Insect life was great too with Bloody-nose Beetles, Green Tiger Beetles, a Stonefly, Brimstone Butterfly and many more.