During my most recent circuit of Cardiff Bay, one day last week, I counted at least nine Chiffchaffs, and I’m sure there were probably more.
Most of those Chiffchaffs that intended to migrate should have moved through by now so it’s likely that these remaining birds will linger a while longer, possibly right through the winter, if the weather doesn’t get too cold. It’s lovely to see and hear them still dotting about the trees.
Judging by the numbers I’ve been seeing in Cardiff Bay during this autumn’s migration, Wheatears have benefitted from a good breeding season.
These birds don’t breed locally, preferring the wide open spaces and heathland in upland areas like the Brecon Beacons National Park (Bannau Brycheiniog) and the Snowdonia National Park (Eryri).
As well as northern England and parts of Scotland, Wales is a stronghold for the British population of Wheatear, together with other members of the chat family, the Whinchat and Stonechat. This was confirmed by a specialised survey conducted by volunteers across Wales in 2012-2013; the BTO website has an abridged scientific paper available on its website for anyone interested in reading further.
We are lucky to see them on passage, as they pause briefly on the south Wales coast before heading across the Bristol Channel en route to their over-wintering locations in Africa.
Did you know their name refers to their white rear end, which flashes when they fly and is one of the best ways to identify a Wheatear seen at distance? Wheat comes from the Old English for ‘white’ and ear comes from the word for ‘arse’.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog about the Common tern, there was another bird that held my attention during that walk around Cardiff Bay; it was, in fact, the reason I had walked that way in the first place. The previous evening, news reached me of a Shag that had roosted and was fishing in one of the old docks, providing exceptionally close views to those who chose to stop and watch.
After the close views I had enjoyed of the Common tern, I did wonder as I walked in the Shag’s direction whether I had already used up my luck for the day, but no. The Shag was still there, constantly diving for fish, at times surfacing just a few feet away from where I was standing. And, once it ventured out of the water to perch on the rocks for a short time, regurgitated some fish it had just caught, swallowed them again, then returned to its watery home.
As the old dock where the bird was is a relatively small body of water, now permanently closed off at both ends, I was surprised at how many fish it was catching. I was also very relieved to see that the fishing line it seemed to have swallowed was not affecting its feeding. Another wonderful close encounter of the avian kind!
It was Friday 26 September, about 10:15am – a late start for me, and I had just begun walking across Cardiff Bay Barrage when I heard someone call my name. That doesn’t happen very often, so I looked in the direction the shout had come from and saw two chaps standing at the lookout point, gesticulating madly. I knew them, of course, two of my local birding buddies but, for the life of me, I couldn’t work out what they were trying to get me to look at.
Then, as I walked over to them, the penny dropped – there was a Common tern flying around so close to where they were standing that they could almost have reached out and touched it. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but this was certainly the closest I’d ever been to a Common tern. The views were phenomenal!
The close proximity actually made photography difficult, as terns are fast and agile fliers, effortlessly weaving and turning, before hovering and plunging to the water to pluck up a fish, all in the blink of an eye. So, I just had to stop and watch, and enjoy the spectacle this bird was providing.
Eventually, we three birders went our separate ways. I walked across the Barrage, spent some time watching the bird that will feature in tomorrow’s blog, then retraced my steps. Luckily for me, the tern had relocated to the northern side of the Barrage, so I plonked myself down on a bench at the water’s edge to watch it some more. I took a few short video clips of it, only one of which was in focus, and was shooting photographs in burst mode, which produced several series of images that show the bird’s flight quite well, so I stitched them all together into one video. If you want to see what had so enthralled me, you can watch it too.
I struggle to distinguish between the ‘usual’ Wheatears we see passing through my area and the Greenland Wheatear, one of four subspecies that has the scientific name Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa and is usually seen only in the spring as it heads from its overwintering locations in African countries like Kenya to its breeding grounds in Greenland, Iceland and north-eastern Canada. So, when one of our more expert local birders announced the arrival of this Greenland Wheatear on Cardiff Bay Barrage, I went down for a look.
It was certainly a very handsome bird, and I’ve since tried to familiarise myself with some its key features. Given the requirement for its long-haul flight, it’s probably no surprise that Greenland Wheatears are longer winged than the subspecies that fly from Europe to Britain to breed. The Greenland’s relatively large size, longer legs and upright stance are also diagnostic.
They are often described as rotund and pot-bellied, which this bird didn’t really seem to be, but then it had just flown all the way from central Africa so probably needed to feed up to replenish its fat supplies. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bothered by the numerous people and dogs walking in the area, and did seem to be finding plenty of insects to snack on. I’m not sure I could yet confidently identify a Greenland Wheatear without expert help, but this was certainly a stunning bird to see and watch and photograph.
Maybe it’s because we’ve had a lot of fine clear weather and, rather than dropping down to rest in Cardiff Bay, they’ve continued their flights north. Maybe they just don’t like the look of the place, with the increasing numbers of people and out-of-control dogs. Whatever the reason, there’s been a notable absence of migrating Wheatears around the Bay this year, with just one bird noted a couple of days ago and then two, a male and a female, this morning. And that’s around two weeks later than usual – for three of the past four years, I’ve seen my first Wheatears on 20 March. Fortunately, I had already decided to walk around part of the Bay this morning so was there when I bumped in to the birder who’d just seen the male Wheatear, and here he is (the bird not the birder) …
Once again, this morning’s search for the first Wheatear of the season on the boulders and grassy areas of Cardiff Bay’s Barrage proved fruitless, as did a walk around the small fenced-off brownfield paddocks of Porth Teigr where, in previous winters, the Black redstarts would assemble (but not this past winter) and an occasional Wheatear might appear.
Luckily for me, my disappointment at the lack of Wheatears was more than compensated for by the little flock of Greenfinches I found, and heard, feeding in the stand of pine trees in front of the BBC studios.
Each bird, both male and female, moved from one pine cone to the next, using their strong sharp beaks to extract the scales from the female cones, then nibble away at the scale until only the seed remained.
BBC staff may have been busy creating their next award-winning nature series within the neighbouring building but, actually, the reality show happening right outside was much more riveting.
I’ve been walking across Cardiff Bay’s Barrage and back quite frequently in the past fortnight, searching the skies and the rocks for the migrating birds that normally appear around this time: Sand martins, Wheatear, Swallows and anything else that decides to drop in for a stopover on its flight north.
And that was what I was doing around midday today when I spotted two Rock pipits grazing on the Barrage’s grassy slopes. I sat on a conveniently placed bench and watched them for a while as they pecked and poked around the low-growing grasses and wildflowers.
Both were collecting invertebrates too tiny for me to see but then one Rockit, the birders’ abbreviation for Rock pipit, found itself an earwig. Though the little insect was squirming for its life, the Rockit had it grasped firmly and, for the earwig, there was no escaping its fate. A couple of quick whacks and down the Rockit’s hatch it went, a tasty lunchtime morsel.
As the reed beds at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve are extensive and quite dense I hear the resident Reed buntings more often than I see them so I was charmed, during yesterday’s visit, by the close proximity on the boardwalk and very confiding nature of this handsome male. I can’t help but wonder if he thought I might give him a seed reward as he strutted this way and that, with all the swagger of someone used to performing on a catwalk rather than a boardwalk.
The Water rail used to be my bogey bird but, once my sightings of that beautiful skulker increased, the bogey bird title passed to the Yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis). I’ve continued to look for one, several times thought I’ve found one, only to work out for myself or be told by birders more skilled than me that I’ve been wrong.
That same thing happened with this bird: when I posted photos online, no one stepped up to proffer an opinion and the one birder who was prompted by someone else to give his judgment decided it wasn’t a Yellow-legged gull.
So, you can imagine how very delighted I was when I received a message from our county bird recorder that he was happy to accept it as a Yellow-leg. As he wrote, the bird shows: ‘uppers mid grey (darker than Herring [gull], paler than LBBG [Lesser black-backed gull]), large size, and [in this case, quite pale] yellow legs all consistent.’ And those features are precisely why these birds can be tricky to identify – unless you have all three gull species standing side by side, the colour ‘mid-grey’ can be difficult to determine, as can the gull’s size. I was fortunate than my Yellow-legged gull was standing next to a Lesser black-backed gull as that made the comparison a little easier. Now to find another!
earthstar 
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