Friday’s walk 1: along Sully beach

29 Saturday Sep 2018

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I try to time my walks at Sully with a mid-morning high tide – that way I don’t have to get up too early for the bus and I miss the early morning dog walkers. Yesterday was one such day and, though there was a cool wind blowing, it was a lovely day for a long walk. At first, I just sat and scanned the beach and the shoreline and the sea.

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Several Turnstones were browsing the big deposit of seaweed the tide had rolled in and then this Dunlin flew in to join them.

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With my bins I followed it in and saw it plop down to join a small number of Ringed plovers by the water’s edge. To me, their dark eye masks make Ringed plovers look like bandits, though very tiny and very cute bandits to be sure.

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One of the banditos only had one leg but it seemed to be managing to hop along okay. That made me think of Hop-along Cassidy but I was mixing up my masked men – the Lone Ranger was the one who wore the mask and, of course, he was no bandit.

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At that point a dog and its owner came tootling along the beach, which put all the birds up … and I realised there were, in fact, two Dunlins (the two lower birds in the centre of this photo).

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I took this opportunity to walk further along the beach and found myself a spot on the stone wall edging a slipway, a location where my birding friend Ceri said he’d seen a large number of waders the previous day. I hadn’t been sitting there long when a Wheatear flew right over my head and on to a boulder about 10 metres in front of me. I’m not sure who got the biggest surprise!

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A large group of waders flew across from Sully Island and landed on rocks near the water. They were a bit far away to see clearly but most seemed to be Ringed plovers, a group of perhaps 30.

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People walking along the coastal path above me scared my little Wheatear friend away but then I realised there were actually two birds flitting along the rocks and scrub.

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They’re such lovely little birds and this one managed to catch itself a snack, which reminded me that it was almost lunchtime, time for me to be moving along on my walk. More tomorrow …

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Blooming autumn

28 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by in autumn, flowers, nature, wildflowers

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Last week we had our first two named autumn storms, this week we’ve had glorious clear days but rather chilly overnight temperatures, so I think it’s fair to say autumn has well and truly arrived. Amazingly, though, wildflowers are still blooming in large numbers. Here are the species I’ve found during my walks around Cosmeston Lakes Country Park this week.

 

Definitely a Dunlin

27 Thursday Sep 2018

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Here’s another beautiful wader from my recent bird club walk at Kenfig National Nature Reserve.

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The Dunlin (Calidris alpina) is probably the British wader most people have seen – even if they didn’t realise what it was. With 9,600 breeding pairs and 350,000 Dunlin over-wintering in Britain, it’s certainly the most common.

And because it’s so common, it’s been given a huge number of common names by the folks that live in different parts of these isles. Some of my favourites are: sand mouse (Westmorland), peewee (Northamptonshire), pickerel (Scotland), bundie (Orkney), and sea lark, from several different locations.

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Mini-beasties at Llandegfedd

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in insects, ladybird, nature

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While my fellow birders were standing in a particularly windy spot to scope the distant shoreline at Llandegfedd Reservoir last Wednesday, I moved along the trail a little to seek shelter behind some trees. And, as I always do, I had a little look at the leaves to see what small creatures were about.

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First up were these two bonking beetles who decided to come over and say hello despite being rather busy at increasing their species. After a couple of photos, I returned them to a new leaf and wished them well.

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Then it was a warm welcome to the world to this newly emerged Orange ladybird – that little pile of dark matter is what remains of its pupa.

And I’m not sure what this mini-beastie is but I love its pale green body, the hint of turquoise in its wings and those incredible feathery feelers out front.

Glorious Golden plovers

23 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by in autumn, birds, nature

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As well as the Sanderlings I blogged about yesterday, the other stand-out birds from last Saturday’s birding walk were these Golden plovers (Pluvialis apricaria) though, in stark contrast to the Sanderlings, they did not move, at all, not one inch, in the 15 minutes or so I was watching them. And, as you can see in my second photo, they were keeping a close eye on me so I couldn’t move around much either in case that scared them off.

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As a result my photos are all very similar and, just to be clear, I have had to lighten these images a lot so you can see the plumage details (it was mostly a very dull day). Still, I hope you can tell how magnificent the plumage of these birds is. These yellow and black markings are their summer colours, which change in winter to a more stark combination of white and beige.

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These birds are British residents, breeding in the high moorland areas of Scotland, northern England and Wales, and then, in the autumn, moving to lowland areas, to fields and sometimes coastal sites, where they can often be seen feeding and flying in large flocks during the winter months.

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I didn’t hear so much as a peep out of the Golden plovers I saw at Sker but I really want to hear their call now that I’ve read this in my copy of Stefan Buczacki’s Fauna Britannica:

The Cheshire name ‘sheep’s guide’ arises from the belief that it gives warning to sheep of impending danger by its plaintive call. In Aberdeenshire, its cry is said to be giving friendly advice to the ploughman: ‘Plough weel, shave weel, harrow weel.’ In other areas, such as North Wales, it is the Golden Plover rather than the Lapwing, Curlew or other waders that has been linked with the legend of the Seven Whistlers (seven birds, flying together by night, whose cries forebode disaster). In common with other birds with plaintive calls, Golden Plovers have also sometimes been regarded as lost souls.

Scurrying Sanderlings

22 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by in autumn, birds, nature

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Watching these busy little birds scurrying back and forth along the beach at Sker last Saturday was the highlight of my day.

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I had walked away a little from the group of birders I was with as I wanted to try to get better photographs of the waders moving along the water’s edge, and I’m so glad I did, as the birds weren’t as bothered about one person standing very still and silent as they would’ve been about 25 chattering people moving about, and so came up reasonably close to me.

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Small flocks of Sanderlings (Calidris alba), and other small waders, were flying back and forth from the rocks to the sandy beach to feed, poking their heads right up to their eyes in the soft sand to probe for their preferred food of small crustaceans and molluscs.

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According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the name Sanderling is a combination of the fairly obvious ‘sand’ and ‘erling’, which probably comes from the Old English yrthling, meaning ploughman (from yrth earth and erian to plough). That certainly makes sense when you see these little birds in action.

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Sanderlings are passage migrants that move through Britain in spring and autumn on their way to and from their breeding grounds in the High Arctic and their over-wintering sites in southern Europe and Africa.

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The birds’ plumage changes for the breeding season, becoming much darker, with shades of reddish-brown on the head, neck and back, and you can still see hints of that on some of the birds in my photos. Also, many of my birds seem to be juveniles, with quite chequered markings on their backs and very clean white under-parts.

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One fascinating factoid I discovered when reading up about these birds is that they have only three toes on each foot, with no hind toe to provide balance, and this is the reason for their scurrying motion. If you want to see Sanderlings in action, I uploaded a very short video to youtube.

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Rosy russulas

21 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by in autumn, fungi, nature

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It’s Fungi Friday and today I have for your pleasure and delight one of the Russula species of fungi. According to the First Nature website of fungi expert Pat O’Reilly, around 160 species of Russula can be found in Britain, and I know from venturing out on past forays with the Glamorgan Fungus Group that the reddish-coloured ones can be especially difficult to identify so I’m not even going to try to put a name to these particular fungi. I just think they’re rather lovely and I hope they brighten your day as much as they did mine.

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Birding at Llandegfedd Reservoir

20 Thursday Sep 2018

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Knock-you-off-your-feet wind gusts, persistent rain showers, slippery-with-mud woodland trails, cross-country orienteering along steep-sided reservoir banks and through much-overgrown long-under-used footpaths … these all added to an adventurous and exhilarating day’s birding on yesterday’s Glamorgan Bird Club trip to Llandegfedd Reservoir, north of Newport.

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The surrounding countryside is beautiful and the trail around the reservoir offers a good variety of different habitats, from woodland to wetland, for birds and other wildlife.

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Some of our ten intrepid birders heading through the woodland, while the wind roared through the tree canopy overhead.

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Looking back towards the dam you can see how low the water level is after this summer’s drought.

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One of our frequent stops to check what birds we could spot along the water’s edge. In the foreground a congregation of Cormorants and Black-headed gulls, in the background some of the 300-plus Canada geese, all hunkered down in the face of the gale-force winds.

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Can you spot the Wheatear that was dotting along the shore, prospecting for insects?

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Alan spotted an adult Yellow-legged gull (centre right, above) amongst the Black-headed gulls, a good opportunity to point out its diagnostic features to those unfamiliar with this bird.

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I don’t think I’d ever seen so many Canada geese in one place before. They sure can make a racket!

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Even the geese were struggling with the wind gusts – here you can see them leaning into the wind as they waddle along.

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And then someone spotted a Barnacle goose amongst all those Canadas and, though its origins were much debated – wild bird or escapee from a private estate or reserve? – seeing that lovely little Barnacle was the icing on the cake of a magnificent day for me, ’cause I sort of befriended the two Barnacle geese that used to be regulars at Roath Park when I lived in Cardiff. Seeing this bird was a nice reminder of those good times.

Full credit to the ten intrepid birders on yesterday’s trip as, despite the adverse weather conditions, we still managed to identify a very respectable 36 species. They were: Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Barnacle Goose, Eurasian Teal, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Goosander, Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Sparrowhawk, Common Buzzard, Peregrine Falcon, Coot, Ringed Plover, Black-headed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Jay, Carrion Crow, Raven, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Swallow, Long-tailed Tit, Willow Warbler, Wren, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Blackbird, Robin, Northern Wheatear, and Pied Wagtail.