16 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
Tags
#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Ely embankment, female duck, female mallard, Mallard, sleeping duck
Some days, when it’s grey and misty and still a bit damp from the morning’s rain, the best thing to do is tuck your head under your wing and snooze the afternoon away – at least that seems to have been the opinion of this female Mallard on the Ely embankment today.
13 Saturday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
Tags
birding, birding at Marshfield, birding at Pilning, birdwatching, British birds, Corn bunting, Little ringed plover, Red-legged partridge, Redstart, Ruff, Wheatear, Yellowhammer
Distant, blurry and bottoms. These three words tell the story of the photographs I took on today’s Glamorgan Bird Club trip to Marshfield and Pilning, both places across the border in Gloucestershire. But don’t be misled by the (lack of) quality of my photos – it was a superb day, with birds I don’t often see at Marshfield (Yellowhammers, Corn buntings, and Red-legged partridges), as well as several Wheatears and a stunning male Redstart. And at Pilning, at the water’s edge between the two Severn bridges, I was able to add Little ringed plover, Yellow wagtail and Ruff to my year list. And as for those photos … well, see for yourself …
The blurry bottom of a Yellowhammer
A distant, blurry Wheatear
The distant, blurry bottom of a Corn bunting sitting on top of a tree
There’s a distant Redstart in this picture
The blurry bottoms of two Red-legged partridges as they flew away
A distant, blurry Little ringed plover
A very distant, very blurry Ruff
12 Friday Apr 2019
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, colour-ringed gull, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Flat Holm Island, Larus fuscus, Lesser black-backed gull, movements of gulls
I have been out wandering today but, rather than sharing some photos from that, I want, instead, to share this information I’ve received about a ringed bird I reported. The bird is a Lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus), which I spotted at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on 1 April and reported through the European Colour-ring Birding website.
It’s a common enough bird, of course, and, as you can see from the list of sightings below, it seems to spend most of its time flying back and forth between Flat Holm Island and Cosmeston, except in November 2017, when it obviously fancied some time in warmer climes. I can’t help but wonder whether that was a one-off trip or whether it just hasn’t been spotted and reported on its other European sojourns.
08/07/12 FLAT HOLM ISLAND, Cardiff
02/09/12 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 56 days)
13/10/12 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 97 days)
12/06/14 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 1 yr 339days)
24/08/14 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 2 yrs 47days)
14/09/14 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 2 yrs 68days)
14/09/14 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 2 yrs 68days)
26/07/15 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 3 yrs 18days)
06/09/15 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 3 yrs 60days)
03/04/16 FLAT HOLM ISLAND, Cardiff (3 yrs 270days)
24/04/16 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 3 yrs 291days)
29/04/16 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 3 yrs 296days)
04/05/16 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 3 yrs 301days)
02/07/16 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 3 yrs 360days)
21/08/16 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 4 yrs 44days)
13/05/17 FLAT HOLM ISLAND, Cardiff (4 yrs 309days)
14/05/17 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 4 yrs 310days)
04/11/17 Costa da Caparica, Setúbal, Portugal (1493 km, SSW, 5 yrs)
07/07/18 FLAT HOLM ISLAND, Cardiff (5 yrs 364days)
01/04/19 Cosmeston Park, Cardiff (23 km, NNW, 6 yrs 267days)
09 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
Tags
#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Ely embankment, Grey wagtail, Motacilla cinerea, Yellow dishwasher
I knew that one of the Pied wagtail’s vernacular names is Polly dishwasher but I’ve only just found out today that its cousin, the Grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea), is sometimes known as Yellow dishwasher … and Barley bird, and Gypsy bird, and Winter wagtail, and Oatseed bird. Such fascinating names, and such pretty little birds. These two, a male (above) and female (below), were picking their way along the rocks of the Ely River embankment in Cardiff Bay this morning.
08 Monday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, British birds, chaffinch, Chaffinch foraging for food, male Chaffinch
Judging by how single-mindedly this male Chaffinch was searching the ground for food snacks and how he totally ignored me when I moved quite close to him – and, in fact, walked even closer towards me, I’m guessing he had several hungry offspring in a nest somewhere nearby and was feeling pressured to fill those gaping beaks.
02 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
Over the past couple of weeks local birders have been finding migrating Wheatears stopping over on the huge pile of rocks that is the Cardiff Barrage, the man-made structure that was built in the 1990s to cut Cardiff Bay off from the Bristol Channel and turn it in to a virtual lake. The Wheatears are returning from over-wintering in tropical Africa and, after taking a short breather on the Barrage, they head further north to their breeding grounds in- and up-land. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate any Wheatears today but the many Pied wagtails were entertaining, flitting busily hither and yon.
01 Monday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, baby birds, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Moorhen, Moorhen chicks
At 9am this morning, one of these Moorhen parents was still sitting on five eggs. By the time I got to the pond at 11.30 there were five newly hatched little bundles of fluff, two of which were already venturing out of the nest. And Mum and Dad were already mating, in preparation for their next brood. If these are the same Moorhens that bred at this site last year, they had three broods in total, I think, and those born first were helping the parents feed the subsequent generations. I’ll be keeping an eye on what happens this year.
30 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
These are the first baby birds I’ve seen this year – five little bundles of fluffy Mallard ducklings.
29 Friday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, seaside
Who was it that invented the collective nouns we use for birds? Whoever it was, they came up with some crackers, though it’s hard to see the reasoning behind some of them. A cluster of Turnstones I can understand, as they do like to huddle together at times, but a bind, a contradiction and a time-step? I suppose they do look like they’re doing a little rhythmic dance at times.
The two in my photos were part of a small cluster of seven picking and poking amongst the stones on the Ely embankment this morning when I started my walk around part of Cardiff Bay.
25 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, birding, birds in Cardiff Bay, birdwatching, British birds, hirundines, Sand martin, spring migration
I’ve been following the reports of hirundines – that’s the Sand martins, House martins and Swallows – arriving for the last week or so, itching to get out and find some for myself. Finally today I plodded, slowly and still having trouble walking in a straight line, over to the other side of Cardiff Bay, and my stumbling was rewarded by the sight of at least half a dozen Sand martins checking out the holes in the walls of one of the old harbour docks as potential nesting sites. A couple of pairs looked like they were getting quite cosy.
earthstar 
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