06 Saturday Aug 2022
Posted in birds
Cygnet. It’s an unusual word, a strange combination of letters, so I checked the Oxford Dictionary for its origin: ‘Late Middle English from Anglo-Norman French cignet, diminutive of Old French cigne ‘swan’, based on Latin cycnus, from Greek kuknos‘.
The Mute swan cygnets below are some of this year’s fledglings in Cardiff Bay. They’re now mostly living independently from their parents, though still like to keep close company with their siblings.
28 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, comparison between Gadwall and Mallard, Gadwall, Mallard
It’s quite unusual for Gadwall to spend time at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve and for them to be so confiding and so consistently in the company of Mallards rather than their own kind, so this little beauty may well be the same bird that visited the reserve back in March 2021.
Yesterday, she was puddling about right next to the boardwalk, which gave me the perfect opportunity to take some comparison shots with a female Mallard: Gadwall images on the left, Mallard on the right. Female ducks can be tricky to tell apart but you can see here that the differences in their body shapes are quite distinctive.
18 Monday Jul 2022
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Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff Bay birding, Cygnus cygnus, Whooper swan
Patch birding list number 108 for 2022 is a delightful surprise, a Whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus), hanging out with the Mute swans in Cardiff Bay. The Whooper isn’t a swan I’ve seen very often as they don’t usually spend their winters in this part of Wales but, with its yellow face patch, its distinctive head shape and its erect bearing, it was easier than expected to pick out from the swan crowd. And, if you’re in this area, the bird will be around for a few weeks yet as it’s currently undergoing its primary moult (i.e. growing new primary wing feathers) so will be unable to fly until the moult is complete. (My photos don’t show this but, if you’re on Twitter, check out @CardiffBirder Peter Howlett’s excellent photos – in fact, I recommend you follow Peter for all the amazing wildlife photos he shares.)
15 Tuesday Mar 2022
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Hydrocoloeus minutus, Little gull, spring passage
Local birders have been treated to another striking gull visitor to Cardiff Bay in recent days, this time an adult Little gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus). They can often be seen locally at this time of year as they move from their over-wintering locations to their breeding grounds but they can be difficult to spot, especially if they are flying in the centre of the Bay.
These are the smallest gulls in the whole wide world – compare the size of the Little gull perched on the buoys with the Black-headed gull standing next to it. Their size is one distinguishing feature, but the best way to pick out the adults is from their wing colours, light grey with a white edging on top, very dark grey with that white edging underneath. The wing shape – often described as paddle-shaped – is also distinctive.
14 Monday Feb 2022
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, Water rail
What a lovely surprise I got during a recent walk through Cardiff Bay’s wetland reserve when this Water rail pranced showily out from where it had been sitting preening in the sunshine and along the water’s edge, surprising not only me but also two of the resident Mallards.
26 Wednesday Jan 2022
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, male Stonechat, Stonechat
A male Stonechat is overwintering at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve. With his orange breast, dark head and streaky brown wings, all crisply edged in white, he’s a dapper-looking little chap, and he’s rarely still. Eyes peeled for the next tasty titbit, he prefers a lofty perch from which to survey his surroundings, and flits quickly down for the catch, then back up to the nearest best vantage point. He’s like a bright spark on a cold winter’s day.
05 Wednesday Jan 2022
Posted in birds
On 10 December the word went out to local birders that someone had spotted a Black redstart in the Porth Teigr area of Cardiff Bay, so the next morning I wasn’t the only person to head over to see if I could find it.
Turns out, there are, in fact, three Black redstarts dotting around together, two males (one, above) and a female (below). I’ve been back to see them several times now and they are worth every strip of shoe leather I wear off my soles walking there and back. They are simply stunning little birds!
p.s. I wrote this post yesterday and, amazingly, in the interim, one of my birding friends noticed that there are actually two females, meaning there are four Black redstarts. I walked across for another look this morning and, sure enough, there were two females. Amazing!
01 Saturday Jan 2022
Posted in birds
In what is becoming something of a tradition, I enjoyed a lovely long walk around Cardiff Bay today to kickstart my patch birding list for the year. I managed to spot 45 species, with the highlights being an overwintering Blackcap; a Common sandpiper (pictured below); the Yellow-legged gull I blogged about a couple of days ago; and one of three Black redstarts currently in the Bay – more on those in a forthcoming blog post. I also caught up with several friendly fellow birders, always a pleasure. Happy New Year, one and all!
30 Thursday Dec 2021
Posted in birds
The Yellow-legged gull is my bogey bird, one I see reported by much more experienced birders than me but which I always have trouble identifying. So, imagine my delight when this 2cy bird (its age – this is the second calendar year since its birth) was mentioned on our local birders WhatsApp group. I recognised where it was standing and knew another (or the same?) Yellow-legged gull had favoured the same place last year. So, on my next walk around Cardiff Bay, I looked for and found it, and was very pleased to add a late new bird to my patch birding list for 2021, bringing the total to 119, one more than last year (though the mix of birds was different).
09 Thursday Dec 2021
Posted in birds
Seeing this Dunlin was a delightful surprise back in May (a fellow birder had spotted it and put the word out), as these shorebirds rarely stop over in Cardiff Bay. Sadly, the chances of seeing Dunlins at all have declined dramatically in recent years, as their population has plummeted, and, according to British Birds recently published report of ‘The status of our bird populations’, these birds have recently been added to the IUCN Red List, meaning they are now at extreme risk of extinction in Britain.
earthstar 
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