Phaltastic

Llandegfedd produces again.Also Little Gull Still and Ad Yellow Legged Gull.

Awesome

A couple of hours off the Golden Cliff this morning turned out to be Awesome.4 Leach's Petrels 1 1st w Little Gull 1 Bonxie and hundreds of Kittiwakes.

Wet And Wild

The weekend was a washout with torrential rain and gale force winds. Not quite in the right direction mind you for seabirds.Did have a Bonxie go down Sunday morning. Off up to Llandegfedd to see if anything had been blown in. A nice Little surprise in the form of a Little

Gull dashing around the res. Well and truly under watched and not given the coverage it deserves.

Peterstone Gout

Peterstone gout this afternoon produced good numbers of the usual duck,the best of the rest were 2 Merlin and 2 Common Scoter.
Check out the high quality snap below.

Seawatch Time

Checked out Porthcawl seafront this morning as the tide had already had a few hours to go out at Goldcliff.Not much entertainment at Porthcawl as the forecasters hadn't predicted the right winds.Did miss A Great Northern Diver by 20 minutes but had Gannet,Kittiwake a few distant Auk Sp and a few Common Scoter.
Then on to the Golden Cliffs for the afternoon shift. 1 Gannet 25+ Kittiwakes 1 Arctic Skua plucked out by Darryl,then i had a Great Northern Diver going down pretty close in.So the four of us stayed until dusk waiting for the Big one.

Twite Snipe And Pipits Oh My.

Spent the weekend on the west side of the Usk.A walk up and down Peterstone salt marsh didn't produce the Twite or any Jack Snipe.3 Water Pipits were a nice consolation.Then a walk west at the Sluice Farm,No Black Reds on the Gwent side but a few over in Glamorgan,Its only a matter of time until they filter the way through.Also in the week the Wood Pigeon movement was well impressive.

Gwent tick

Had a lie in Sunday morning due to the torrential rain.Thought i would go and have a look at the firecrest at Peterstone.No sign of it after an hour so a few of the others who were there decided to go to Goldcliff.Myself and Darryl carried on and checked the hedgerow towards the sea wall.When i got to the sea wall i picked up a bird with an unfamiliar call on its own which then joined a flock of Linnet and ditched in the salt marsh.After describing the call to Darryl who thought it sounded good for twite we made a few passes of the salt marsh upon which we had it in flight calling and a brief view on the deck before it disappeared down one of the many channels.It did fly back over us at one stage heading west which was the last sighting.Well worth getting soaked,muddy and nearly breaking my leg for.Just hope it hangs around a bit so i can have a good crack at it.See here( www.gwentbirding.blogspot.com ) for a Pic.