Great Crested Grebes off Neath Rivermouth

After seeing the Lesser Scaup at Eglwys yesterday, Neil Edwards and myself bumped into Mark Hipkin at Baglan. There was no sign of the Velvetes Scoters but the number of Great Crested Grebes was very impressive with at least 347 birds present in two or three rafts. There were also 14 Red-throated Diver and the Black Redstart by the worm farm. Not sure if there were any grebes in the western part of Swansea Bay, but the numbers off the Neath River alone indicate that the bay is now likely to qualify as being of National significance; the qualifying threshold in The Waterbirds of the UK 2007/08 (Holt, et al. 2009) being given as 159. The map below shows the current BTO winter atlas distribution based on records on the MapMate system. [Well done Mark for filling in much of the NPT coastline]