Little Ringed Plover at Eglwys

Little Ringed Plover at Eglwys

 A glorious day today at Eglwys and lots of stuff around enjoying the sunshine. A Little Ringed Plover stole the show and was very confiding at the South end of the reservoir feeding in between the the fishermen.

Whitethroat at Eglwys

 Plenty of migrants on offer too, with 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Whitethroat, 4 Sedge Warbler with numerous Willow Warbler, Chiff Chaff and Blackcap.

Scaup pair on Eglwys

A touch winter still remains with a pair of Scaup among 34 Tufted Duck.

Butterflies  in flight today included 1 Orange-tip and 3 Green-veined White

Kittiwakes on Mumbles Pier

The Kittiwakes have been back on the pier for a while now and it is well worth the 50p entrance fee to see these pelagic gulls at such close quarters. You may also notice that experimental nesting platforms have been erected as part of a mitigation strategy to ensure that the birds are not adversely affected by the proposed redevelopment of the pier. Paul Tyrrell took these shots of the birds on their more traditional nesting ledges last week.

(c) P. Tyrrell

(c) P. Tyrrell

First Painted Ladies of the year

Dai Roberts saw this beautiful immigrant butterfly at Cwm Ivy Marsh sea wall on the 2nd April and Chris Brewer also saw one at Overton the following day. Lets hope these are the first of many to come this year.

Painted Lady 02 April 2011 D. Roberts

Little Gull at Eglwys

Little Gull at Eglwys

An adult Little Gull was flying around Eglwys this evening with c250 Sand Martin and 4+ Swallow. Two drake Scaup also at this location. Elsewhere today 3 Sandwich Tern flew east past Aberavon Beach early morning and 1 Green Sandpiper at Red Jacket Pill made for a pretty good recording day in NPT.

Hoary Fringe-moss at Pennard

After reporting this rather scarce species last month http://goweros.blogspot.com/2011/03/pennard-burrows.html, but in a rather shrivelled and crispy state due to the dry March weather, I was pleased to record it in another part of the dunes today looking as it should, after a damp morning; the moisture providing the necessary trigger for the leaves of this attractive moss to unfurl.

Racomitrium canescens (Hoary Fring-moss)

Racomitrium canescens (Hoary Fring-moss)

Clouded Drab at Kenfig Ind. Est.

The Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta) is a common noctuid moth found at this time of year and you're pretty much guaranteed to see it from mid-March to mid-May if you run a moth trap almost anywhere. Possibly the most interesting feature of this rather uninterestingly named species is its extreme variation. The following three images taken last light show just variable this moth's basic colouration can be...

Other perhaps more interesting species noted last night included Chamomile Shark (Cucullia chamomillae) and Northern Drab (Orthosia opima), photos of which are on the Glamorgan Moth Recording Group blog at  http://gmrg-vc41moths.blogspot.com/2011/04/kenfig-marshalling-yards.html

Full set of Hirundines

House Martin at Eglwys

 Well, a clean sweep of the common ones anyway! All three regular summering hirundines were present at Eglwys today; c100 Sand Martin, 6+ Swallow and 1 House Martin. Manual focusing on hirundines is no easy task and as you can see I've still got a long, long way to go! The thinking being that practising on the day a Red-rumped Swallow turned up would be leaving it a bit late. Here's hoping in any case!

Swallow at Eglwys

Sand Martin at Eglwys