Chicks of Cardiff Bay

22 Saturday Jun 2024

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, Canada geese, Canada goose goslings, Cardiff Bay birding, Lesser black-backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull chicks, Oystercatcher, Oystercatcher chick

For the first time in ages I walked a circuit of Cardiff Bay on Tuesday – I usually avoid the place in the summer as there are too many people for my liking, but I’d heard there were some chicks to be seen so I went looking. These are they …

240622 canada geese (1)

Canada goose (above and below): there were two broods of goslings, one of five and one of six, with their parents and a flock of 20-plus adult geese (as if they were all keeping an eye on the children) in one of the now-landlocked old docks. They’ll be stuck there until they learn to fly but I’ve heard people have been feeding them (perhaps that’s also why so many adults are present) so hopefully they’ll all develop to maturity.

240622 canada geese (2)

Lesser black-backed gull: one chick was still on the dolphin where their nest must have been (there is no other way the chick could have got there), squawking almost repeatedly at an adult gull that was perched higher up the dolphin structure. The other chick had either fallen or jumped from the dolphin and was nearby, at the water’s edge, washing and preening.

240622 lesser black-backed chicks

Oystercatcher: this was the main reason for my walk and definitely the highlight. A pair of Oystercatchers has been returning to the same spot, on another of the dolphin structures, for several years, to breed but they have always failed to raise a chick to adulthood. It is a very odd location for their nest – no other Oystercatchers breed locally so I wonder if this is where one of them was originally hatched. So far, this year’s breeding attempt is going well so let’s hope their good luck continues.

240622 oystercatchers

On a grey Bay day

04 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, walks

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

birding, birds, birdwatching, black-headed gulls, British birds, Canada geese, Cardiff Bay, Coot, Cormorant, fog, Great Crested Grebe, little grebe, long-tailed tit, Moorhen, Mute swan, Pied wagtail, starling, walk around Cardiff Bay

171104 1 Cardiff Bay fog

Thick fog hung over Cardiff Bay as I set out on a round-the-bay circuit yesterday morning and, though the fog thinned as the day went on, the day remained grey. Still, never let it be said that grey is boring. Birds there were aplenty (and wildflowers, too … but that’s for tomorrow’s post).

This cormorant was enjoying a successful spot of fishing in the old Penarth dock area, though it was slim pickings for the three Little grebes around the corner in the River Ely.

All around the Bay, on almost every man-made structure and clump of rocks near the water, Pied wagtails bobbed, wagged and ‘chisicked’.

Coots were even more numerous, and an occasional Moorhen prospected along the shoreline.

171104 5 Cormorant 171104 5 Flock of Canada geese

As I was watching this Cormorant drying its wings, our peace and tranquillity was interrupted by the loud honking of a large skein of Canada Geese flying in from the west.

Where concrete and buildings dominate the shoreline and there’s a notable absence of trees, the birds have adapted and perch on tree-like things.

I saw perhaps half a dozen Great crested grebes around the Bay: I always admire how long they can stay underwater when fishing. Mute swans were more numerous. They are birds of such contrasts, looking anything but decorous when flaunting their glorious white bottoms as they feed, yet the picture of elegance when preening.

171104 8 Black-headed gull (3)