Skokholm

Wryneck and a Nightingale still present

Strumble Head

10 Sabine's gulls passing with the kittiwakes up till 10:30am. Single Sooty shearwater, jinking Grey phalarope, Balearic shearwater Bonxie and 7 Arctic skua the pick. Lots of the regulars in attendance as well as visiting birders.

Newgale to Dale

 Saturday 2.30pm to 5.30pm

An interesting day and similar to Toby’s day.

Starting at Newgale, mist was in and low visibility though a lot of things moving out to sea, just glances.

Got to Broadhaven and on the beach, 12 Dunlin and two Sanderling then came in about 20 terns which were gaining in number, settling on the beach, approx numbers 40ish common, 6 arctic, with 6 sandwich with far more out to sea.

Stopped at Goultrop as starting to brighten, and unusually here was the waders all heading South. Including 20ish ringed plover, 40ish dunlin, 4 turnstone, 6 knot, and then a grey phalarope which were all at eye level heading over the headland towards Talbenny. Comics, gannet and kittiwakes further out.

Finished at Dale hoping that all had dropped at the Airfield but only a single curlew a wheatear and a very close at times female kestrel.

St Govan's Hd, Freshwater West and Kilpaison

Two seawatching shifts at St Govan's Head today. The morning was the most productive with the highlight being two Grey Phalarope which lingered off the headland for a short while around 8am. Also impressive was the number of Terns (Mostly Arctics) offshore before 8:30am.

Totals up to 11.20am were (all west): 

Grey Phalarope 2

Arctic Skua 3 (dark-phase adults)

Kittiwake 125

Manx Shearwater 306

Sandwich Tern 12 (and 7 east) 

Arctic Tern 95

Common Tern 12

Commic Tern 111

Common Scoter 5 (east)

Heavy rain set in after that so I had a break and went to check Freshwater West and then Kilpaison. 

Fresh. West - 5 Dunlin 

Kilpaison - 36 Dunlin, 29 Ringed Plover, 2 Sanderling, 3 Turnstone, 1 Whimbrel, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 70+ Curlew, 45+ Oystercatcher. 

Moulting adult Sanderling at Kilpaison this afternoon.

Back at St Govan's Head for the evening was quiet but 4 Arctic Skua flew west in two hours.

Yesterday evening at Freshwater West a small waders flock on the beach consisted of 7 Sanderling, 3 Dunlin and 6 Ringed Plover. 

Juvenile Dunlin (left) and moulting adult Sanderling (right) at Freshwater West yesterday evening.

Osprey

From David Wilks: Osprey seen this morning at 9:30am, clearly looking for fish. Downstream from the iron bridge.

Sabine’s Gull

We had wonderful views yesterday of a juvenile Sabine’s Gull, dip feeding along the North coast of the Marloes peninsular, about a quarter of a mile east of Martin’s Haven. It only fed 100m-200m out, and kept to a pretty small area, sometimes sitting on the water for several minutes: a great way to see all the plumage details of a beautiful bird.

Elsewhere: 

Bicton pond, currently a near-perfect scrape for waterbirds, had a Wood Sandpiper, 4 each Green Sandpipers and Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Snipe, and a Yellow Wagtail. Plus 20+ Teal, all in eclipse.

The post on the Blog yesterday about stranded Manxies was well timed. I found this one absolutely in the middle of the Fishguard Road, opposite Withybush Hospital, at about 1AM this morning. Safely boxed up, and released above Renny’s Slip 40 minutes later!

Skokholm

 Nightingale and Wryneck still

From Ian Sefton:

A Juvenile Grey Phalarope at Landshipping Quay yesterday 27/08/25, managed a poor record shot.

 

Skokholm

Wryneck still here today. Thanks to Brain S for sightings of Great Black-backed Gull W:488 on 29Jul (a juv last seen here on the 27th) and W:492 on 11Aug (a juv last seen here on the 7th), to Derek for W:429 on 16Aug (a 2023 ringed adult which breeds here each year) and to Astins for W:168 on 19Aug (ringed as a chick in 2016 and breeding here in each of the last two years). 

Grounded Shearwaters

 

Manx Shearwater

From Dave Butler: A manx shearwater was in my garden at 1 30am this morning,  released at Milford Quay flew off strongly  by 1 45 am. 

Grounded Shearwaters: Our first of the season today and likely to be more with strong winds over the weekend.

For the past couple of decades we have been collecting grounded shearwaters brought in by the public to the Ocean Lab. We then get them ringed by Rich or Wendy, (Teifi Bird Ringers) before safely releasing them. preferably from the Stena ferry when out to sea. There is usually a coordinated response with other collection points but as yet i have not seen who or where as yet. Either way the Ocean Lab (SA64 0DE) Fishguard Harbour, is open 7 days a week, 10 am to 5pm so happy to take any found locally. Best thing is place bird in a smallish cardboard box lined with kitchen roll or newspaper with air-holes punched in top or sides, and securely closed. They can lve a long time without food or water so dont put water or food in with them, they will be fine. allthingsgood,cliff Sea Trust

Teifi and Newport Ospreys

August highlights from the Teifi 

The three current Ospreys are mentioned here - two are colour ringed birds.

Skokholm

Our second Nightingale of the autumn and a Wryneck today. Also the first Spanish ringed Manx Shearwater to be found in the UK (awaiting details). 

Manorbier and Tenby

Seawatching for a couple of hours this morning (up to 8.30am) produced a Sooty Shearwater (west) and Balearic Shearwater (east) amongst a steady passage of Manxies and Kittiwakes past Old Castle Head. Also a dark phase Arctic Skua west. 

At Tenby south beach this evening a nice group of 46 Ringed Plover and a single Dunlin.

Also of note recently a Jackdaw bearing a yellow colour ring in the harvested potato field above Skrinkle Haven. The bird was ringed as a recently fledged juvenile in July 2024 at Pennard Cliffs, Gower and is apparently the furthest resighting from this project to date! 

Dale Airfield

Our first visit to Dale Airfield this autumn.  The 'stony field' at the west end is grassy this year so not looking promising for waders.  The 'leaky water trough' at the east end has created a nice wet area, on which were 2 juvenile Little Ringed Plover, and 3 juvenile Ruff which were very showy and unconcerned by our presence.  A Ringed Plover was flying around calling but we never saw it.  An impressive gathering of Great Black-backed Gulls numbered at least 200 birds across 2 flocks.  At least 5 Wheatears on the runways.

Nevern estuary 27th Aug

A quick look for waders on the dropping tide between 1235-1330 today turned up:

Knot x 2 

Ruff x 1 

Dunlin x 23

R plover x 15 

Turnstone x 1

Redshank x 1

Oystercatcher x 3

Curlew x 1

The colour ringed osprey also made a brief appearance.

Newport from Sam O'Donnell

Surprised to find this Wood Warbler along the coastal path near the tennis courts alongside the estuary. 

German ringed juvenile female Osprey still fishing over the estuary. Also Blackwit, 10+ Ringed Plover, 30 Dunlin, 2 Common Sandpiper, Redshank, Oystercatchers, Curlews, 3 Med Gulls, Willow Warbler, Kingfisher. 

The Gann and Marloes Yesterday

A bit late, but awaiting information on a red colour-ringed and yellow leg-flagged Ringed Plover which was on the Gann river yesterday at low tide around 1pm. The bird  with code S06 was recorded by Museum Stavanger, Norway, as having been ringed as a 1CY in a mist net at Makkevika (Norway, Møre og Romsdal, Giske) on 10.09.2022. The site is an Ornithological reserve, 62°3029N, 006°0137E, and part of the larger Giske Wetlands System, a Ramsar site, 1371km from the Gann. It has been sighted twice previously at Easton Bavents, Southwold on 19th and 30th September 2022.

I had spent the morning at the Gann unsuccessfully trying to find a rarity amongst the small waders, but the most unusual were a pair of Bar-tailed Godwits just up from the bridge. There were about 40 Ringed Plovers and 45 Dunlin in a couple of distinct flocks, the larger one having some signs of summer plumage, but the second looking very wintery and also showing much longer bills, so presumably different subspecies. For once the Curlew flock all flew down from the marsh to the beach at around the same time and landed in a small area. There were 93 together when counted. A single Whimbrel came down an hour later. The gull low tide beach roost is increasing with 103 Great Black-backs, a few with red colour rings but none legible, with a few Lessers, plus 103 Herring Gulls. Also noted were 2 Common Sandpipers on the river, 23 Redshank, 5 Greenshank, 5 Mediterranean Gulls and 2 Stock Doves flying over the river. A Red Kite was working the beach on the Musslwick side, flying very slowly into the strong breeze, but without success and later a noisy Buzzard took a pop at the Redshanks and Oystercatchers beside the river, possibly an inexperienced juvenile. There were 13 Little Egrets on the beach shoreline to the west and at least one more on lagoon/river.

A quick trip to Kete in search of a pair of mysterious Golden Plover seen the previous day turned up almost no birds at all. On Sunday there had been hundreds of gulls and corvids on the fields northwest of the NT car park, but if anybody is keen on butterflies there were thousands of Large Whites on a big kale field near to the coast and several Clouded Yellows on the coast path along with blues and fresh Painted Ladies.

After lunch at Marloes Mere there were 4 Ruff on the stream out from the Britton hide plus singles of Lapwing and Snipe. About 100 gulls settled for a while on the mud and remaining water in front of the hide, about 30 of which were Black-headed Gulls. A juvenile Marsh Harrier came in from the west around 4pm and dropped into the long grass and seemed to settle there. I did not notice any missing tail feathers. Thanks go to the two visiting American birding ladies who saw it first. There were 6 Teal and 4 Little Grebe on the remaining patch of water, plus the coots and moorhens. Flocks of 20+ Starlings and 500 Jackdaws gave a hint of autumn, despite the warm sun.

Nevern estuary 26 Aug

Paid a visit to the estuary today on the dropping tide from 11:50-13:15

Iron Bridge:

Tide still very high when I arrived. 3 common sand were in amongst the Canada geese. 4 little egret also present. A colour-ringed osprey flew up river (only a dark colour ring discernable, not the code).

Estuary:

The tide dropped very quickly. The osprey made multiple passes until about 12:20. Waders on show included 8 oystercatcher, 3 curlew, 1 blackwit, 1 sandling, 17 ringed plover, 15 dunlin and 1 redshank.

Hobby

 From Steve Halton - Nice to see a Hobby hunting over Penrallt Garden Centre, Moylegrove today at approx 1100.

Skokholm

 At least one Wryneck today

Osprey - Nevern estuary

 Osprey seen today at 15:50 making a few passes of the very shallow channels, no further sign of it at 16:00 when I reached the iron bridge.

Marloes Peninsula and Llys-y-fran

Early start this morning. Single juvenile ruff the only wader on the mere. Lots of this years youngsters inc whitethroats, linnet, goldfinch and lots and lots of stonechat. Marsh harrier on the Deer Park looked like it came from the direction of Skomer, it continued inland hunting over West Hooks fields. More whitethroat, stonechat and blue and great tits, couple of robins. Female kestrel (not seen many this year). Tree pipit calling as it passed over. Back at the mere, now 2 ruff, green sandpiper and 2 snipe. The Marsh harrier was then hunting here (moulting tail feather). It flushed the snipe and the green sandpiper but ruff weren't bothered. Migrant hawkers in the sunnier spots.

Llys-y-fran last night, just 2 Common sandpiper. Plenty of bank but water levels not as low as I expected. Family group of 5-6 Little grebe, 3 juvenile heron, 3 jays and a kingfisher. 300 Canada geese and 30 Greylag. I had a report of an osprey here in the week. Bumped into George out checking as well.