Little gull

03 Tuesday Mar 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Hydrocoloeus minutus, Little gull

Yesterday’s post about Siskin was the last from my recent mini break in Weymouth (though I have already booked a return visit in a couple of weeks). Luckily for me, no rare birds turned up in my home area while I was away; miraculously, the first, this Little gull, arrived the very next morning (Saturday 21 February). And it’s been present every day since, so I’ve managed to see it, albeit distantly, several times now, which has been good practice for my birding skills, picking out a single small gull among several hundred, mostly Black-headed gulls.

This year’s Little gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus) is a 2nd winter 3CY bird. If you don’t speak ‘birder’, that means the bird has just lived through its second winter, which means it was born in the summer of 2024, and, as it’s now 2026, is in its third calendar year. I am not experienced enough to have worked that out for myself but our local experts can tell from looking at the bird’s plumage. There is a very detailed description of the precise details on the Gull Research website but, in summary, at this stage the bird looks quite similar to an adult Little gull but still has some black feathers towards the tips of some of its upper wings.

During last Monday’s walk around part of Cardiff Bay, the wind was blasting across the water from a westerly direction. That didn’t make for very pleasant walking, or birding, as my eyes stream in the cold wind, but the weather did have one good point – it pushed many of the gulls closer to the Barrage pathway, which is how I managed to get these few photos, before the heavy rain came in and saw me stomping quickly homeward.

A tree full of Siskin

02 Monday Mar 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, winter

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Carduelis spinus, RSPB Radipole, Siskin, Siskin eating Alder seeds

The RSPB Radipole Nature Reserve in Weymouth was quite disappointing for wildlife during my recent visit, except for the presence of a large flock of Siskin (Carduelis spinus), their distinctive happy chattering audible from quite some distance along the path. (If you’re not familiar with their call, the RSPB website has a sound file you can listen to, though be aware that I could hear a Blackbird singing in the background, as well.)

Siskin are traditionally found in coniferous woodland but I’ve noticed that, especially in the winter months, they can be found wherever there’s an abundance of Alder trees, as they seem to love using their sharp beaks to prise open the cones to extract the tasty nutritious seeds.

I was interested to note in Fauna Britannica that two of their several vernacular names are black-headed thistlefinch (though I’ve never seen them eating thistle seeds) and tea leaves (sadly there’s no explanation given for the origin of this Cheshire name, which seems quite extraordinary).

A Shelduck or two

28 Saturday Feb 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lodmoor Nature Reserve, RSPB Lodmoor, Shelduck, Tadorna tadorna

I’ve blogged about our local Shelducks (Tadorna tadorna) before, in How many Shelducks?, 9 October 2019 and Hoovering Shelduck, 25 February 2025. They’re stunning waterfowl that look a bit like a cross between a duck and a goose, coloured by an enthusiast child with bright paints and a vivid imagination.

It’s only occasionally that I manage close views of them, as the Cardiff Bay birds spend most of their local visiting time on the distant mud flats between the Barrage and the Bristol Channel, so I appreciate all the more the times when I can sit on a bench and watch them going about their day, as happened last week at RSPB Lodmoor.

Dark-bellied Brent geese

27 Friday Feb 2026

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birding, birdwatching, Branta bernicla, Branta bernicla bernicla, Brent goose, British birds, Dark-bellied Brent goose

Today we have more birds that I don’t get to see very often in my part of south Wales. These are Brent geese (Branta bernicla), Britain’s smallest goose, their bodies not much bigger than a Mallard duck. They come in two colour variations: though they all have black heads, necks and beaks, with grey-brown backs, some are pale-bellied (subspecies Branta bernicla hrota), whereas others, like the ones shown here, are dark-bellied (Branta bernicla bernicla).

According to Fauna Britannica, ‘the name “brent” comes via “brant” from the Old Norse brandgads, meaning “burned [or black] goose”. The Wildlife Trusts website notes:

Birds that nest in northern Russia and Siberia have darker bellies, and spend the winter around the coasts of East Anglia and southern England. Birds that nest in Svalbard and Greenland have paler bellies and mostly spend the winter around North East England and Ireland.

These particular Dark-bellied Brent geese were near Wild Chesil Centre, at Ferrybridge, on the road from Weymouth to the Isle of Portland. I’m told a good number of them over-winter in this area. The geese in the short video I took were feeding on the edge of the pools adjacent to the Centre car park and, fortunately, there was a single car parked in that area that I was able to use to approach the birds without being seen. Standing behind the car, I took a few photos and, then, very very slowly I moved closer and sat on a huge boulder at the edge of the car park to watch and video and watch some more. They were a delight!

Wigeon

24 Tuesday Feb 2026

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Anas penelope, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lodmoor Nature Reserve, RSPB Lodmoor, Wigeon

Like Lapwing, the Wigeon (Anas penelope) is another bird I don’t see very often in my home environment. We get a few occasional Wigeon drop in at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park but they don’t usually remain very long. And, having seen them spending a lot of time grazing in very shallow water and on low grassy areas adjacent to the water at RSPB Lodmoor, I can understand why – Cosmeston simply doesn’t have undisturbed areas where the hundreds of local dogs wouldn’t be able to get to them.

So, as with the Lapwing, it was a real treat to see so many of these handsome birds at Lodmoor. The rich chestnut head and grey upper body of the male Wigeon is a particularly attractive colour combination.

I don’t recall hearing them make any noise (though that may be because their sound was drowned out by the other birds) but the name Wigeon is thought to have been derived from their whistling call. Other vernacular names – whew duck (Northumberland); whewer, whim, whistler (eastern England) – are also imitative of their call, according to Buczacki in Fauna Britannica. Here’s a link to their call on the RSPB website, if you fancy a listen.

Lapwing

23 Monday Feb 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, winter

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lapwing, Lodmoor Nature Reserve, Peewit, RSPB Lodmoor, Vanellus vanellus

Very occasionally small numbers of Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) are seen alighting briefly in local farm fields or are spotted passing overhead by keen-eyed birders but, generally speaking, Lapwings are a rarity in my part of south Wales. Which is a great shame because they are stunning looking birds, and their evocative call, the Peewit sound that has given them one of their many common names, is wonderful to hear.

So, you can probably imagine my delight when, on the first afternoon of my most recent Dorset trip, I made my first visit to RSPB Lodmoor and immediately saw and heard large numbers of Lapwings. Sporting the largest crest of any British bird and plumage that flashes with a metallic sheen in the sunshine, Lapwings are very handsome birds.

Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t the harvesting of their feathers that caused the Lapwing population to crash in previous centuries; according to Fauna Britannica, the declines were caused by people plundering Lapwing nests for their eggs, which were considered a delicacy. The book cites an example where ‘280 dozen lapwing eggs were taken annually in the 1860s’ from just one estate near Thetford.

Lapwings recovered well after this practice was made illegal in the Lapwing Act of 1926 but numbers are once again declining, this time due to changes in agricultural practices; the birds require fallow fields in which to feed during the winter but the majority of farmers now sow their fields twice each year, in spring and again in autumn. According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s publication Into the Red, the Lapwing population in Wales and southern England has declined by 80 per cent since the 1970s meaning the species is now classified as red-listed. It was a privilege to spend time watching these beautiful birds during my four visits to Lodmoor last week.

Avocet

21 Saturday Feb 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, winter

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Avocet, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lodmoor Nature Reserve, Recurvirostra avosetta, RSPB Lodmoor, winter birding

I’ve just returned from my first little holiday since last September, a four-night break in Weymouth, a location that’s now a firm favourite of mine. As has become my habit, after checking in to my guest house, I headed east along the seafront to walk off five hours of train travel with a circuit of Lodmoor Nature Reserve. Though the wetlands were more full of water than usual due to all the recent rain and the paths were, as a result, quite muddy, the birdlife was a delight, and, as expected, the species were quite different from what I’d seen in the summer months. Now, there was an abundance of Teal and Shoveler, Lapwing and Wigeon, the latter two not species I see very often and both new additions to my birding year list. The other new species was a real treat and totally unexpected, this gorgeous Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta). The Avocet is such an elegant bird, crisply clad in classic black and white, with the upwardly curved beak that makes it instantly recognisable. I was entranced and lingered until dusk watching this bird feeding and preening; it was the perfect start to my holiday!

Our celebrity Redshank

19 Thursday Feb 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Peter Redshank, Redshank

If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know about this beautiful bird from my previous posts but, if you’re new, meet local celebrity Peter Redshank! Celebrity because it’s the only ringed Redshank in the area, Peter because it was ringed as an adult on 22 February 2016 at Peterstone Great Wharf, on the coast of the Bristol Channel just north of Cardiff. Peter has been re-sighted many times each year since 2016 and is now well known to those of us who bird the local area, but it’s always a joy to see him/her (we don’t actually know what gender the bird is) in and around Cardiff Bay. I caught up with Peter and took this portrait one day last week.

Three Common sandpipers

17 Tuesday Feb 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Common sandpiper, over-wintering Common sandpipers

During the past few winters those of us who bird Cardiff Bay have been privileged to enjoy regular sightings of two Common sandpipers that are spending the winter foraging those areas around the water’s edge that might provide the tiny creatures they like to eat: insects, spiders, and small crustaceans.

This year the number of wintering Common sandpipers has increased to three.

As most Common sandpipers simply pass through the Cardiff Bay area, moving to their breeding grounds in the spring, and to over-wintering locations further south in the autumn, I like to think that this third bird is the offspring of the original two, introduced to the concept of spending the winter in our area by its parents … but this is pure speculation.

Delightful doves

14 Saturday Feb 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Collared dove, Columba oenas, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, Stock dove, Streptopelia decaocto

Britain is home to five members of the Pigeon family: Rock dove (which manifests for most of us in the form of the domesticated Feral pigeon, though there are still thought to be wild Rock dove populations in north-west Scotland and the south and west of Ireland), Stock dove, Woodpigeon, Collared dove, and Turtle dove. Though I haven’t seen wild Rock doves, I have been lucky enough to have seen all these species, including, just once, the very rare Turtle dove.

The Stock dove (Columba oenas) is not that easy to see in my area. According to my RSPB bird book, the historic expansion of their population was a benefit of the expansion of arable farming but the use of chemical seed dressings in the 1950s and 1960s led to a huge decline in the Stock dove’s population, a decline the species is still recovering from. Fortunately for those of us who want to see these handsome birds, at Forest Farm Nature Reserve in north Cardiff there are at least two Stock doves that have taken advantage of the food people leave for the local birds and are now quite confiding, if you’re careful.

Back in April 2017, I explained in my blog post, Genetic mutation leads to immigration, about the arrival in Britain in the 1950s of the Collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto). Now they’re a common sight in my local area, and, I think, a lovely addition to Britain’s avian population. They seem to have set territories, and the bird shown here is one of a pair I see quite often when I’m walking by the River Taff in Cardiff.