Tag Archives: Cosmeston Lakes Country Park

36/365 Staring at gulls

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, winter

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I’m sure I’m gaining a reputation as ‘The woman who stares at gulls’. I don’t think of myself as a larophile, a gull-worshipper – I’d just like to become better at identifying them. With their annually changing plumages, the juveniles are the most difficult; generally, the adult gulls are easier, if you can get a good look at them. Today, at Cosmeston, while staring at the gulls as usual, I actually found something different, not one of the usual Black-headed gulls or Lesser black-backed gulls or Herring gulls, but this lovely Common gull. Fortunately, it was close to the shoreline so it was easy to pick out its distinctive bill and head shape and colouring. A very pretty little gull!

190205 Common gull

24/365 Yaffling all day long

24 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, winter

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It was a woodpecker-kind of day at Cosmeston today. No sooner had I arrived and cast my eye (and bins) up towards the chirping-finch-filled trees above my head than I spotted a Great spotted woodpecker. It wasn’t drumming but was studiously pounding away at the tree trunk it was on – preliminary hole excavation work perhaps.

190124 green woodpecker

Then, as I headed on along the path, I heard this Green woodpecker yaffling in the neighbouring field. A reasonably tall hedge separated us so I was able to get quite close for photos and to watch it prospecting for ants and other insects in the damp ground. I wonder if the winter dampness means its prey is further down in the soil – it was certainly probing quite deeply.

 

22/365 What’s green and yellow?

22 Tuesday Jan 2019

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Today I went looking for the Siskin that were seen at Cosmeston on Sunday (and had been heard by another birder earlier in the month). They’re not birds I’m familiar with as they’re not common locally and I’ve only seen them a couple of times when I’ve been on bird club trips (oh, and once very high in the trees at Forest Farm). My heart skipped a beat when I heard a flock of Goldfinches in the trees ahead of me (the Siskin were associating with Goldfinches on Sunday) and saw a few flashes of yellow and green in the birds with them. Unfortunately, they weren’t Siskin but Greenfinches – I’m not complaining though, as Greenfinches are also birds I don’t see very often.

190122 greenfinch

18/365 A slimy Friday

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, fungi, nature, winter

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It’s been wintery today, with a chill wind and frequent showers, but I rugged up and headed out for a stomp for the air and exercise. Cosmeston was almost empty of people and dogs, something unheard of on warmer days, and any wildlife was also keeping well under cover. So, I enjoyed a bimble in Cogan Wood, picking up logs, looking for insects and fungi, and I found this interesting slime mould growing on an ivy leaf.

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6/365 On the fence

06 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, lichen, nature

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Much to the amazement – or perhaps the amusement – of Cosmeston’s dogwalkers, I spent rather a lot of time closely studying the tops of fence posts today. The variety of lichen to be found on them is really quite astonishing but I wasn’t only admiring the lichen. There were even more interesting things sitting on those fence posts …

190106 on the fence

Under the log

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in fungi, insects, molluscs, nature, slugs, winter

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The weather was back to grey and drizzly again today so I donned my wet weather gear and headed to Cogan Wood to spend part of day 5 of my #7DaysofWildChristmas challenge turning over a few rotten logs and branches. And what did I find lurking there?

Woodlice; snails both long and rotund; earthworms; luscious balls of orange slime; tiny globular balls that looked like the eggs of something or other; pale little lumps of White or Crystal brain fungi; slugs brown and black; a stripey legged Harvestman; miniscule white mushrooms adorned with drops of water; a young centipede or millipede – I can never be quite sure which is which; dark little cup fungi, black with olive rims (Catinella olivacea) – very pleased with that find; and various other things, the photographs of which were either out of focus or too grainy due to the poor light conditions in the woodland. There’s nothing quite like getting wild and muddy – it was fun!

181229 under the log (11)

Second time lucky

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in birds, nature, winter

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On Sunday I went to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park to look for the Scaup that has, since 13 December, been enjoying the delights of the lakes and the company of the huge number of Tufted ducks currently resident there. I had a wonderful mooch about but couldn’t find the Scaup (though I did spot a Hawfinch, a rare visitor, and was very pleased with that).

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So, I went back again on Monday, partly to look again for that Hawfinch but also for the Scaup. And I was lucky with both birds, with another very fleeting, distant view of the finch but superb close views of the Scaup, which came to feed on the seed I always carry with me in the winter.

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This is a drake Scaup – actually a Greater scaup (Aythya marila), which is usually just known as Scaup, as the Lesser scaup is so rarely seen, and a first-winter bird, as it doesn’t yet have its adult plumage – the brown colouring you can see on this bird will disappear as it develops into an adult.

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In south Wales, the Scaup is an uncommon winter visitor and passage migrant, which, according to the latest Glamorgan Bird Report, enjoyed a ‘welcome increase of records and numbers’ in the 2017 first winter period (i.e. between January and mid April). Let’s hope the increasing number of sightings of this handsome little duck continues.

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A slimy Monday

27 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in fungi, nature

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Cosmeston was relatively quiet yesterday. A few Redwings flashed their rusty flanks at me, indignant that I had interrupted their grazing in the west paddock, and a pair of Mistle thrushes screeched their football-rattle call from the tree tops as the Redwings flew up to join them. Carrion crows and Grey squirrels hovered on the periphery, watching as I fed seed to a posse of passerines in Cogan Wood, but the hoped-for Marsh tit did not appear. So, I abandoned the birds, headed up and along the muddy woodland tracks where few people venture, eyes down and searching for fungi. Within minutes, my hand was scratched from reaching too carelessly through brambles, my fingers were filthy from picking up rotting wood to examine more closely, my camera was speckled with dirt from being plonked on the ground for better close-ups, but my reward was this most wonderful slime mould. I don’t know its name but I am a huge admirer of these enigmatic organisms, and this one was a beauty!

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Hen harrier!

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

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‘It flies so low that sometimes it seems to be stirring the grass, its long legs trailing through the heather like a keel. A slow tacking flight: float then flap.’ This description of a Hen harrier’s flight pattern is from the library book I’m currently reading, Raptor: A journey through birds by James Macdonald Lockhart (4th Estate, London, 2016) and, by sheer coincidence, I watched a Hen harrier fly just like this yesterday.

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I was at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, walking along the central hedgerow in the west paddock, on the lookout for winter thrushes, and had just walked down into a dip in the field when, with a loud whooshing sound, a large bird flew almost over my head.

181120 hen harrier (2)

I immediately turned and looked up, swung up the camera and clicked as many times as I could before the hedgerow blocked my view. Walking quickly up out of the dip, I watched the bird, pursued by a couple of Carrion crows, dodge eastwards, then veer back west and head down over the west lake reed beds and on towards the coast.

181120 hen harrier (3)

But what was it? It seemed quite large but I didn’t think it was a Buzzard. There had been a Sparrowhawk harassing the smaller birds a couple of days previously, but the flight didn’t seem right for that – not the flap, flap, glide that Sprawks are known for. This bird had been flying very low and relatively slowly.

181120 hen harrier (4)

I had been out walking for about 5 hours by this time and was getting cold, so decided to head home. Hot cuppa in hand, I grabbed by trusty RSPB Handbook of British Birds, transferred my photos on to my laptop and opened up Photoshop. As the day had been gloomy, the shots all needed lightening and heavy cropping to get a better look at the bird. When I consulted my handbook, I found a bird that matched but couldn’t believe it was right. Luckily, my birding friend John was online so I flicked him a message with four photos … and waited.

Yay! He confirmed the match, a Hen harrier (Circus cyaneus), from its colouring either a female or a juvenile – it certainly looks exactly like the juvenile image in my book. This is quite a rare bird locally so I was absolutely over the moon to have seen this beauty.