Tag Archives: Cardiff Bay birding

Encounters with grebes

28 Saturday Jan 2023

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I’ve had two interesting encounters with Little grebes in the past week. The first was being relatively close to this little cutie having a bath, a delightfully splashy affair.

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Then, a couple of days later, I noticed this gang of Little grebes floating along the River Taff. At this time of year they often seem to congregate around the area where the Taff flows in to Cardiff Bay (I counted 28 thereabouts recently). I don’t know the reason for this but I wonder if it is some kind of pre-breeding behaviour, where the single grebes come together to appraise each other, looking for potential mates.

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And then there were three

18 Wednesday Jan 2023

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I know I’ve blogged about this drake Goldeneye very recently but I want to share yesterday’s magical experience. The drake was much closer than usual to the boardwalk along the edge of Cardiff Bay so I was able to watch its almost constant diving for food and to admire its stunning plumage when it washed and flapped its wings.

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Suddenly, a flock of Tufted ducks flew in to join the couple of hundred already present and, amazingly, they were accompanied by two female Goldeneyes. It took ten minutes or so for the three Goldeneyes to find each other, and then I was able to watch all three interacting. It was enchanting!

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Drake Goldeneye

14 Saturday Jan 2023

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Almost a month ago we had the pleasure of two Goldeneyed gals cruising around in Cardiff Bay. Now, and for the past few days, perhaps due to the very blustery weather we’ve been experiencing, we’ve had a drake Goldeneye visiting. He mostly maintains a discrete distance from the water’s edge but, yesterday, was close enough for slightly better photographs. He’s a very handsome bird, his head a glossy dark green, his body and wings a stunning pattern of blacks and whites, and I particularly like his white cheek patches. If yet another squall hadn’t come in, I would’ve stayed longer to watch him but I’m hoping he will linger and provide more viewing opportunities in more clement weather.

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New year, new lists

02 Monday Jan 2023

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Yes, I make lists. Each year, a new page in my notebook, new pages in the spreadsheets on my laptop. I only keep two lists, one for the birds I see and one for the butterflies, which, unless I’m very lucky, won’t have any names added for a few months yet. I don’t do this in competition with other listers but rather as a way of comparing one year with another, and also of remembering. Just as photographs trigger memories of places and events, so too do my lists. And then there’s the personal challenge, particularly on the first day of the new year, to see how many bird species I can find on a walk around Cardiff Bay (31 in 2018, a whopping 47 in 2019, 44 in 2020, 40 in 2021, 45 in 2022). And this year’s total? Well, incredibly, yesterday’s 9-mile walk resulted in a total of 50 bird species, which was definitely helped by the lingering presence of Black redstarts, the Whooper swan, and this female Scaup.

Five Redshanks

21 Wednesday Dec 2022

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In previous years, the Redshanks have returned to the Ely embankment, where the River Ely runs in to Cardiff Bay, as early as mid October. This year, for some unknown reason, they’re late. I started seeing them on the mud outside the Barrage a couple of weeks ago but these five are the first I’ve seen grazing along the shoreline of the embankment, where they catch tiny molluscs and crustaceans. It’s wonderful to have these handsome birds back on the patch again.

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Two Mipits

20 Tuesday Dec 2022

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Often, my first indication of the presence of a Meadow pipit (Mipit is the contraction often used by birders) is its pip-pip-pip call as it flies away. They are notoriously flighty birds, despite their markings providing such good camouflage that we often hear them before we have any chance of seeing them. I hear/see these birds in the fields at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park and also along the edges of Cardiff Bay, which is where the two birds below were foraging for food.

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This first bird was fossicking around the pebbles and amongst the vegetation of the embankment of the River Ely where it flows in to Cardiff Bay.

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And the second bird was on the edge of the Barrage. I’m fairly sure this was a juvenile – rather than fly away immediately on seeing me, it huddled very close to the board edging the grassed area, as if that would make it invisible.

Goldeneyed gals

16 Friday Dec 2022

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As their usual waterways freeze over and temperatures plummet, many birds are forced to move to find open water and places to feed. Though it’s certainly not pleasant for the birds, one of the huge pluses for those who love birding is that, in places like Cardiff Bay, having several days in a row of freezing temperatures can bring in the rarities. And, that’s exactly what happened today, with not one but four Goldeneyes present, a pair that I didn’t manage to see and these two females. I spent a delightful half hour watching them diving and preening and sailing back and forth just outside the iced-up waters along the Barrage. Magic!

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Rafting Cormorants

06 Tuesday Dec 2022

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I’ve seen this behaviour by the Cormorants in Cardiff Bay many times. A few birds gather on the water, then more and more fly in from their various roosting spots to join in. Moving forward together across the water, each bird dives repeatedly.

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I assumed the Cormorants were either driving or following a school of fish below the water, and this would seem to be confirmed by a research paper I found online, which discusses a different species of Cormorant living around the Arabian peninsula. Here’s what they have reported:

… data suggest that the benefits of group foraging outweigh the costs of intense aggregation in this seabird. Prey detection and information transmission are facilitated in large groups. Once discovered, shoaling prey are concentrated under the effect of the multitude. Fish school cohesiveness is then disorganized by continuous attacks of diving birds to facilitate prey capture.

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A bat’s demise

01 Thursday Dec 2022

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This is the sad tale of a bat that ventured out during the daytime only to be snaffled by a Magpie. I initially noticed something tiny flying around low to the water in Cardiff Bay but wasn’t sure what it was until it flew up and clung to a nearby concrete wall. Bat!

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Sadly, at the very moment I was taking some photos of it, a Magpie swooped down from above and grabbed the tiny beastie, carrying it up to the ledge above. The Magpie shook its prize a little, perhaps confused by what it had captured, then carried the bat into the nearby bushes. A Carrion crow followed the Magpie very shortly afterwards and, judging by the Magpie’s subsequent shrieking, I suspect the crow carried off the prize.

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Speaking to Amy, a local bat expert, it seems this individual was a species of Pipistrelle, which Amy thought looked underweight. That, plus the fact that it was flying during the day, means the bat was probably ill or injured, so its demise, though very unfortunate, may well have been inevitable.