Sunday 5 April 2015

Change of Plan

Martin Bevan and myself had spoke on Saturday evening and decided to stay local on Sunday and go to Cwm Cadlan to see if our local Wheatears had returned yet.

However when I picked him this morning we decided to go to Parc Slip to have a look at the drake Garganey there. Neither of us had been to Parc Slip for quite awhile so we were not sure how to get there. Members of this blog will know I had a problem has Mr Bevan would be in the passenger seat and navigating. Going on previous instances we would probably end up in Cotswold Water Park. Wonders never cease we actually went straight there.

We went to the Northern Wetlands hide but there was no sign of the Garganey. There were at least 5 Little Grebes, Tufted Duck, Lapwings, Teal, Coot, Moorhen, Canada Geese and two Swallows went through. We then had a walk around the rest of the reserve which again neither of us had been to before. We found the Bittern hide and the only bird seen was a confiding Water Rail. We then located the new scrape, no waders there but we both liked the look of the place. Walking back we met Graham Powell who told us that he had just seen the Garganey on the Fountain Lake. Graham had to explain how to get there as we had never heard of the place. Thanking him we hurried off and following his instructions we found the lake straight away with a cracking drake Garganey right in the middle swimming back and fro in bright sunshine.

We then drove over to Kenfig and walked down to the pool. Wildfowl included Gadwall, Shoveler, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Teal, Pochard, Great Crested Grebe, Canada Geese, Grey Lag Geese and a Kingfisher fishing near the hide.

A total of 7 Brimstones were also seen between the two sites.

On the way home we went to Cwm Cadlan and picked up a lone Wheatear.

In the afternoon I went back out and went down to Nash Point. I stopped at Tyn-y-Cae to look for Yellowhammers but the only thing I saw were two Hares in the field. After parking at Nash Point I walked down to the lighthouse and then carried on eastwards a walk I had not done before. No sign of the hoped for Choughs, Fulmars or Peregrines. The fields were also very quiet apart from some Gulls, Jackdaws and a few Skylarks. The Hedgerows contained a lot of Dunnocks, a pair of Stonechats, and a small number of Linnets.
 Garganey
 Chiffchaff and below Stonechat

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