Gower Ornithological Society indoor meeting

This Friday, 24th February the Gower Ornithological Society will meet at the Environment Centre in Pier Street for an illustrated talk by Paul Llewellyn, titled Man and the Environment.

Paul will be known to many of you as a very knowledgeable, entertaining speaker on huge range of natural history subjects and his expertise is highly regarded. He has been involved with birds all his life, being a founder member of the Gower Bird Hospital has extensive experience with birds of prey having looked after many injured birds at his home in Gower. Among his many other achievements, Paul was instrumental in bringing the environmental issues to the attention of the authorities who were minded to permit the motorcycle race on Swansea Bay: that has now been delayed indefinitely for consultation.

The evening promises to be informative and enjoyable, so I urge you to support the society and Paul and come to the meeting.

Admission is just £1.00 and you are welcome to bring friends, family and guests. Doors open 19.00 for a 19.30 start.

Yours

Jeremy Douglas-Jones (Secretary)

The Mosses of Mumbles

Maritime turf at Mumbles Head, habitat for Bristly Pottia

On Sunday, after checking out the Kittiwake ledges we walked from The Knab out to Mumbles Lighthouse sampling some coastal bryophytes along the way. Below are some of the more interesting species noted:

Bristly Pottia (Tortula viridifolia)
on bare soil in maritime turf by the Lighthouse

Dark-green Flapwort (Jungermannia atrovirens)
on wet Limestone cliff at the Knab

Starry Thyme-moss (Mnium stellare)
on wet Limestone cliff at the Knab

I suspect not everyone gets that excited by bryophytes, but ecologically these are a very important group of plants, occupying a diverse range of niches. The following galleries illustrate a good selection of species found locally over the past 12 months or so:

Mosses     Liverworts  

Kittiwake ledges at Mumbles

The Kittiwake nesting shelves have now been erected on The Mumbles Lifeboat House. Their purpose is to provide alternative nest sites, as the birds are to be excluded from their former nest ledges on the pier whilst extensive renovation work is carried out there this summer. Fingers will be crossed that the birds take to these artificial ledges.

Personally I don't expect that the entire population will move location in the first year, but hopefully some birds will to provide the foundation upon which the colony can regrow. There should be sufficient capacity for around 200 pairs, but whatever the outcome the developers and others involved should be applauded for their commitment in accommodating this very special population.

Breeding Bird Survey Training Day

The BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is the main scheme for monitoring the population changes of the UK’s common breeding birds.
This is an excellent way to make your birding count as the results obtained from the BBS are widely used in bird research and conservation.
It is relatively easy to take part in the BBS - just visit a local 1km square twice during the breeding season to record all the birds you see and hear.

Wayne Morris (the BTO Regional Rep for East Glamorgan) and I will be running a BBS Training Day on Sunday 18th March at the Kenfig Nature Reserve.
It will start at 09:30 and run to about 15:00. Entrance is free but participants will have to bring their own lunch. Tea & Coffee will be provided (contribution welcome).
The training will involve an introduction to the different aspects of the BBS and some fieldwork around part of the Kenfig NNR.

If you would like to learn more about the BBS, and maybe take on a BBS square (especially now that the BTO Atlas work is over), then you may wish to consider booking a place on this training day.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like further information. I can be contacted on 01792 537439 or by e-mail: alastair.flannagan@ntlworld.com

Alastair Flannagan
BTO Regional Rep for West Glamorgan

Smew still at Upper Lougher

redhead Smew

This fantastic duck was found by Alastair Flannagan the Sunday before last (12th) at Upper Loughor. By all accounts it seems pretty loyal to a stretch of water about 1 mile upriver from the Loughor Bridge in the channel (SS565995) next to the broken-up stone structure along the bank . This area is best viewed from the lookout area found along the path north from Upper Loughor car park (SS571988).

Smew video

The Smew was quite happy for me to be close but a Goosander was not so trusting and it flushed the Smew before I could get out of the wind. This turned out to be a lucky break because the incoming tide would have forced me the long way back to the car had I left it 10 mins more (which I would have done, at least that!)

Anyway on to Salthouse Point for a bit of seawatching therapy. The waders and wildfowl were a little disappointing but a few raptors made up for that. Started with a Peregrine performing acrobatics while giving chase to a Dunlin. Next a male Hen Harrier flew along the marsh towards Llanrhidian and the female Merlin (shown below) kept me company for more than 5 mins.

female Merlin waiting for incoming tide to flush the next meal

I was wondering what she was doing for a while but my best guess is she was waiting for the incoming tide to flush a Meadow Pipit or some other prey. She flew into position not far from me and waited in this spot for more than 5 mins. I was scoping the estuary on top of a mound, guns were going off nearby (last day of shooting season) and she didn't falter. It was as if she had a really good plan and nothing was going to get in the way!

Neath Abbey

Neath Abbey, the remains of a 12^th century monastery, is one of the most important Ancient Monuments in Wales. Even as a ruin it is an imposing structure and it’s not difficult to envisage its original grandeur on the tidal banks of the Afan Clydach, overlooking the extensive marshland of the Neath Estuary against a hilly backdrop thick with woodland. Happy days! It ceased to be a monastery in the 16^th century, although much of it survived for some time after that. By the second half of the 18^th century, however, the Abbey was a ruin and had even been used as a copper smelting site, and later as part of a local ironworks, all in an increasingly polluted atmosphere. By the 19^th century, this ancient idyll had become a ‘tip’, and remained so until heroic volunteers cleaned up the site in the 1920s and 1930s. However, air pollution continued to be noxious well into the last century and this would have had a huge effect on local wildlife, exterminating the high diversity of epiphytic lichens and bryophytes which must have been known by the Cistercian monks. But today the young sycamores and ash trees in the vicinity of the Abbey are once again plastered with lichens, mosses and liverworts, testimony to a cleaner atmosphere.

Notable lichens on the trees here include two species that are quite sensitive to air pollution, Flavoparmelia caperata and (particularly) Parmelia perlata. Both have increased greatly in abundance in our region over the last 50 years. But the trees at Neath Abbey also have a conspicuous cover of Parmeliopsis ambigua, a lichen which was once rare in southern Britain. It really likes acidic bark and some have claimed that it has increased its range as a result of acid rain – perhaps a bonus of air pollution! Other lichens abundant on the trees here include Physcia tenella and Lecidella elaeochroma.

In the photograph above, the big leafy lichen (in the centre) is Flavoparmelia caperata, the small bright yellow green leafy lichen (mostly to the right) is Parmeliopsis ambigua and the small grey leafy lichen (mostly bottom left) is Physcia tenella. The lichen with the black dots on a grey background (top centre and bottom left) is Lecidella elaeochroma.

Peek-a-berus

My first adder (Vipera berus)of the year, seen today on Gower.

A male in an unusual spot.