Tag Archives: Cardiff Bay birding

A surprise Black-tailed godwit

25 Tuesday Aug 2026

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Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, Thursday 20 August. A Black-tailed godwit had been spotted at the reserve the previous day and remained on the morning of the 20th, as reported by the birders in my local WhatsApp group. I hadn’t seen any migrating birds during a couple of recent days’ looking, and this sighting was enough of a local rarity that I figured I’d walk that way.

When I got to the wetlands, there was no sign of the godwit, nowhere within the reserve boundary and not in the little bay (shown above) where it had previously been seen. I waited and watched, enjoying the other birds, noticing a female Shoveler – not particularly common here.

Suddenly, a small wader flew out from where the godwit was meant to be, and continued in panicked circles over the water. A Common sandpiper.

Next, the many Mallards that had been cruising about, washing, preening, all went a little crazy, swimming together in a group away from the reed beds. A couple of Moorhens and Little grebes joined them, clearly rattled about something. Then, the Black-tailed godwit flew out, also looking panicked, and put in a few circuits of the reserve before settling down amongst the ducks. I still don’t know what spooked them all but both Otters and Mink have been sighted at the reserve recently so it was probably one of those species.

Both the Common sandpiper and the Black-tailed godwit flew circuits of the reserve again before all the birds seemed to realise that the threat had gone, and calm returned to the flock. Recognising this, the godwit headed back in to its little hideaway, probably intending to snooze the afternoon away.

A local Linnet

15 Saturday Aug 2026

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It’s that time of year when the seeds of Herb Robert are ripe and ready for any passing seed-eating birds to harvest.

Pigeons, both Woodpigeons and feral, seem to quite enjoy them but it’s the local Linnets I see feasting on them most often.

These particular Herb Robert plants grow amongst the stones of the embankment of the River Ely where it flows in to Cardiff Bay, convenient for the small flock of Linnets that spend their lives around the Bay.

A one-legged wagtail

27 Saturday Jun 2026

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During the summer months I don’t often walk along the embankment of the River Ely where it flows in to Cardiff Bay as most of the birds I like to see there are elsewhere, busy breeding the next generation. However, during this past week, while we’ve been melting under the record-breaking temperatures of our second heatwave of 2026, the Ely embankment made for a pleasant and relatively short early morning walk before I retreated from the burning sun.

And, of course, there were still birds to be seen: Mallards snoozing close to the water’s edge; Coots ditto, until a passing dog walker’s mutt barked at them, scaring them in to the water; a couple of Great crested grebes diving often for sprats; and this handsome male Grey wagtail, standing guard over his two youngsters who were chasing each other with the mad exuberance of youth out over the water and back again.

Though Grey wagtails can be quite skittish, this one seemed more confiding. And then I noticed why that was – it only had one leg. This didn’t stop it from moving about but, when it was still, it was obviously more comfortable sitting with its body touching the ground. And, considering this bird had raised two healthy youngsters, it was obviously able to live a full life, which was very reassuring to see.

Not Bank swallows

16 Tuesday Jun 2026

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During last week’s wander around Cardiff Bay and on in to the city I paused for a wonderful 20 minutes to watch the Sand martins flitting constantly in and out of their nests in every available gap, hole and crevice in the walls of the Bay’s many old docks.

Their activity has reached a level of frantic that means I can safely assume they’re now feeding young.

In North America the Sand martin is known as the Bank swallow, something I didn’t know until quite recently when a man tried a little too forcefully to tell me (the term ‘mansplaining’ applies here, I think) that the birds I was watching and listening to were Bank swallows, rather than Sand martins, because that’s what his Merlin bird app told him.

(Note to Merlin users: if you live in the UK, make sure you change your settings to British bird names!)

Five little cygnets

30 Saturday May 2026

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I’ve never really understood how anyone, let alone a talented writer like Hans Christian Andersen, could label a cygnet an ‘ugly duckling’. In my opinion, there is nothing even remotely ugly about a cygnet; it is the very embodiment of cute.

These five very young cygnets were with their Mute swan parents, pottering along the water’s edge where the River Ely flows in to the western edge of Cardiff Bay, and watching them certainly brightened up a very dull, grey, occasionally wet day. I hope you enjoy this massive dose of cuteness as much as I did.

Little gull

03 Tuesday Mar 2026

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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.

Our celebrity Redshank

19 Thursday Feb 2026

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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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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.

Female Scaup

24 Saturday Jan 2026

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It was 10.34 yesterday morning and I was walking across the Barrage, being blasted by the ferocious winds that have plagued us for three days now and looking to see if those winds had blown any interesting birds in to Cardiff Bay, when my phone emitted the double ping that meant a new WhatsApp message had been posted on the local birding group.

A Scaup had been sighted with a flock of Tufted ducks close to the water’s edge by the Norwegian Church. It was perfect timing as I had literally just taken a couple of steps towards home, having spotted nothing new. Instead, I immediately turned around and started striding in the direction of the church, as I knew there was a possibility the birds might be disturbed and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity.

Luckily for me, this stunning female Scaup was still there, and, for the next 15 minutes or so, I enjoyed wonderfully close views. Most of the time she had her head tucked under her wing snoozing but twice, when a group of noisy people walked along the pavement behind me and when one of the water buses left Mermaid Quay to sail up the River Taff to central Cardiff, the Scaup lifted her head to scan her surroundings. Unfortunately, the revving engines, passenger screams, and wave action caused by a Cardiff Jetboat hurtling around nearby then caused almost the entire flock of birds to panic and fly to the other side of the Bay, exactly what I had feared might happen. (And don’t even get me started on the damage and disturbance that jetboat causes in the Bay!)

I had actually seen this same Scaup twice before yesterday, as she had been at Cosmeston Lakes for a couple of weeks before relocating to the Bay with her Tufty friends on Thursday. However, when I had managed to pick her out at Cosmeston, she had always been distant, on the far side of the west lake, so I was really thrilled to see her up close in the Bay.

The Cardiff Bay Ravens

19 Monday Jan 2026

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Cardiff Bay is home to a pair of Ravens, those stunning large black members of the crow family that have been much persecuted over the years by farmers and gamekeepers but, fortunately, are slowly recovering their numbers here in Wales.

Whenever I walk around Cardiff Bay, I look out or listen for them – their ‘kronk kronk’ call is unmistakeable. During one such walk, just before Christmas, I was walking across the Barrage when both Ravens flew in and landed quite close to me. I wondered if they would take food so I said ‘Hello, Ravens’ to get their attention, put down some of the berry-flavoured suet pellets I give ‘my’ crows, and backed off a little to watch. They hopped right over and, after checking out the pellets, wolfed them down. I was delighted.

I didn’t see the Ravens again until the new year (they’re early nesters so are probably busy refreshing their nest already), when I walked another circuit of the Bay on 9 January. Their behaviour that day led me to conclude that Ravens have inbuilt facial recognition software. Despite the fact that I’d only fed them once before, they appeared to recognise me and came hopping over, expecting food. And while ‘she’ ate the suet, ‘he’ chatted; Raven: ‘Kronk, kronk’, me: ‘Boop’, Raven: ‘Kronk, kronk’, me: ‘Boop’. This exchange went on for several minutes, with me looking around frequently to make sure no one was listening! I have no idea what we were saying but it was a definite, totally unexpected, and most wonderful conversation.

If you’re wondering why ‘Boop’, the sound is one used by Amy, on the YouTube channel @wingsandwildlands, when she communicates with her incredible captive-bred Raven, Fable.