Naffin' doing

A five hour vigil at Goldcliff Pools was only maintained due to the surprising comfort achievable whilst reclining on the sea-wall. The birds were very thin on the ground/water. Three Gannet down-channel were the only seabirds; a fly by Cuckoo, a Wheatear and a few Swifts and hirundines were the only real migrants; and a few Whimbrel, Black-tailed Godwit and Knot were the best of the waders. All the above were beaten into a poor second place by the unringed (and, therefore, blatantly tickable) Bar-headed Goose.

P.S. Also had my first ickle baby Redshanks of the year,... aaah.

Long distance badgers

Too windy for recording Cetti's so busied myself with birding paperwork. I have spent most of the day staring out the window in between spells writing cobblers about redpolls, all to the tune of England comprehensively beating an under-performing Windies side. In an effort to maintain a minimum level of interest within the readership, here's a picture of some brightly coloured passage waders currently to be found refueling along the estuary on the way to somewhere really exciting like Greenland or Baffin Island. Not the most difficult of identification conundrums, I guess the most likely confusion species for Turnstone is American Badger although I accept many fewer of the latter are to be found flipping pebbles on the Goldcliff foreshore (see here to be totally convinced).

'Sea' monsters

An evening high-tide, the wind in the west and the magnetic pull of Goldcliff - it must be seawatch o'clock. A couple of hours sentry duty produced 1 pale phase Arctic Skua up-channel, the briefest view of 2-3 Manxies, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Sanderling, 13 Turnstone and 15 Whimbrel.


Stealing the show, however, was my second ever Gwentish Grey Seal, a reasonably petite (female/immature?) and rather attractive individual, that is, as compared to the male that was at the mouth of the Wye a while back.

See, I said she was a cutie.

Sound and vision, no contest

Yesterday was 'International Dawn Chorus Day' (see here for more details), something I singularly forgot to mention, however, as today was 'Welsh Dull, Wet and Windy Day' I've got nothing else to bore you with, so you'll have to make do with a photo and recording of Sedge Warbler from Uskmouth. The background of the Sedgie recording is 'enhanced' by Coot, Wren, Cetti's Warbler, Reed Warbler, Carrion Crow and the soothing tones of Uskmouth Power Station; the background of the photo is enhanced by nothing but the smooth rendition of out of focus areas, life is so much richer when you carry a parabolic microphone around.



[NB. The mp3 file is 1.8MB, if you have a slow connection, then either be patient or sort yourself out a quicker one,... consider yourself disclaimed.]

From mega to dross

An early morning at Uskmouth followed by a quick nose around Goldcliff Point and Goldcliff grasslands produced another Hobby, a few Whimbrel, a light hirundine passage and precisely naff-all else; you might say 'back to earth with a bump' after the fun and games enjoyed over the last week. One thing that did catch the eye was the burgeoning numbers of Collared Doves on the fringes of the reserve. A quick rummage through the library on my return and, Bob's your mother's brother, I found this...

Proper hardcore birding

Today consisted mostly of pottering over to Gloucestershire for the quickest bit of this...

Followed by a slightly slower paced bit of this...

Before driving on down to Shapwick Heath for a brief look at a Willow Warbler with an aberrant song and producing this stunning photographic effort...

NB. Gwentbirding recommendation No. 1 - the White Hart at Littleton-upon-Severn; No. 2 - Bath Ales 'Golden Hare'; and No. 3 - a used Nikon 25-50mm f4.

[Addendum: Forgot to mention, also had my first Hairy Dragonfly, Grass Snake and Marsh Frogs of the year at Shapwick. How the Sam Hell did Marsh Frogs get to Shapwick?]

Whimbrels and whimsy

Decided against a four hour drive to see Crested Lark and sauntered off down to Goldcliff for a few hours over high tide. Not an awful lot 'doing' but Hobby and Greenshank plus smatterings of White Wagtail and Whimbrel managed to slow the slide into birding torpor. Other highlights included a Swarovski-toting Mrs. Dude stringing Dunlin for Golden Plover! Before you ask, I don't know, I just don't know; what I do know is, when asked by her husband where said Goldies were, she got very snappy indeed before rapidly spouting "Oh look, there's a Redshank" in perhaps the weakest display of ornithological filibustering I have ever witnessed. I laughed on the outside, cried a little on the inside.

Due to the rather slow pace of the birding I couldn't help but drift off into the realm of day-dreams every now and again. My best examples of fanciful (some might argue mentally challenged) cerebral sojourns today were:

1. wondering whether the silicon-based life forms aboard the good ship Earth (computers, robots, Kenwood Chefs, etc.) will, at the nadir of the oncoming flu pandemic, realise their opportunity and rise up to take over the world (I bet they use poisonous gases); and
2. thinking how much fun it would be if the RSPB were to provide golf-carts to the fat, ancient or just plain lazy customers at Uskmouth to allow them to become ornithologically-challenged daleks whizzing back and fore between cafe and lighthouse, lighthouse and shop, shop and sea-wall... just take a moment to imagine...

vroom, "Is that what they call a ducky-wucky?",... whizz, "Should I be using my phone whilst driving this?",... screech "Excuse me, do you mind moving your tripod, my dog and I would like to get passed",... whoosh, "What do you mean 'flushed the bird'? If that's a euphemism, I'll have you know I haven't even visited the toilet yet",... HONK!, "Well, what's one less Canada Goose between friends?" beep beep beep "Warning, misspent RSPB funds reversing, warning, misspent RSPB funds reversing".

Phew, thank jumpin' Jehovah nobody would dream up anything quite so f**king stupid as that, eh? I mean, how would they avoid jogger/mountain bike/dog-walker/dalek pile-ups?

It seemed a shame not to

I couldn't help but notice one of these was present not more than two(ish) hours from my front door, it seemed churlish not to go and see it flitting about amongst the apple blossom.



Look mum, no rings! Not the slightest hint of 'the spirit of the wild' about it either. There was a colour-ringed Tufted Duck stood on the same island though, I shall endeavour to discover from whence it came.

Second helpings

The warbler is showing commendable loyalty to the southern end of the shelter belt. I bowled up this evening to a completely birder-less bench, sat down and, within a few minutes, the familiar sub-song trickled out of the exact same bush John, Helen and I first heard it in yesterday. I managed to get a few brief but close(ish) views before a series of showers swept in and it did what any self-respecting southern European warbler would, and disappeared to some unseen cozy little branch in the deepest recesses of the, newly christened, "Subalp clump". As soon as the clouds parted and the sun reappeared the warbler did likewise (reappeared that is, not parted, that might have been very messy) and we, there were now half a dozen present, had another brief look before it took umbrage at the noise-emitting-gadget-ridden birders' and flitted off. It reappeared once more just before dusk, at which point I took another stunning photograph.

Look there it is, behind all those pesky lichen-clad twigs yet waaaay in front of the plane of focus. That sort of subject placement takes real skill.

Not to be outdone

I couldn't help but notice the Subalp flight shot, complete with arrow, on the CBC site (see here). Well, so as not to be outdone, please see below (you may have to peer very hard, or click on the pic to appreciate its true mastery, but in amongst the withered remains of last year's willowherb and umbellifers is a Subalp in the act of putting on his air brakes). The inexorable rise in photographic quality continues unabated.

Actually, so far, the best shots are to be found here.