Happy New Year everyone (Well, it's my first post of the year!).
I've mainly been pottering around quite locally, but have managed to be my year list up to 109 and I haven't left Glamorgan yet. On the PSL front, over 20 lifers so far this year, mainly fungi and lichens.
The BTO Tawny Owl survey has frustrated the hell out of me. Over the late summer I was hearing the local birds most evenings/early mornings. They performed nicely for the first few of the weekly visits, but since November, the visits have been dead, nothing, not a single hoot.
This morning I did the first of this years WeBS counts. As I didn't have a great deal of time before heading off to coach, I walked up to the climbing centre in the dark, with the intention of doing the count in a single pass of the lakes at Taf Bargoed. The bonus of going up to the top end in the dark was the chance to pick up Tawny Owl for the year and see if any Woodcock were around. In the cold, and wet, dark of the morning, it looked like the Tawny's would be a blank but Woodcock could be o the cards.
Reaching the bottem end of the lakes, 3 large white shapes drifted into view - three Mute Swans. Whoa! they were all immature birds, so it looks like a record count for the species was on the cards - provided, of course, the resident adult bird was still around. Further up i through the rain, two more large white shapes could be vaguely made out - 2 more Swans? Bring on the light.
Walking on further, I passed the first of the morning bird scarers out with their owner for an early morning walkies. Talking to the owner, they had been up round the settling beds. So little chance now of any Woodcock!
Passing the settling beds i heard the briefest hoot. Was it a Tawny, or was it just my imagination - desperation setting in!. I waited but heard nothing further. So I decided on trying a little bit of play back. Within 30 secs a distant male hooted in response. Nice, they are still around. Just as I was wondering if the bird would come closer to investigate the potential intruder, a hoot sounded quite close. Ah, it had come closer. It hooted again, prob no more than some 50 meters away and was almost instantly answered by a distant hoot, the first responding male - so 2 males, even nicer.
As the light gradually improved, onto the count, and indeed there were 5 Mute Swans - the resident adult and 4 immature birds. The regularly wintering Teal was still present and Coot numbers had risen to 2. Mallards don't seem to be going down in number with 122 (including the 4 Gemima's).
I've mainly been pottering around quite locally, but have managed to be my year list up to 109 and I haven't left Glamorgan yet. On the PSL front, over 20 lifers so far this year, mainly fungi and lichens.
The BTO Tawny Owl survey has frustrated the hell out of me. Over the late summer I was hearing the local birds most evenings/early mornings. They performed nicely for the first few of the weekly visits, but since November, the visits have been dead, nothing, not a single hoot.
This morning I did the first of this years WeBS counts. As I didn't have a great deal of time before heading off to coach, I walked up to the climbing centre in the dark, with the intention of doing the count in a single pass of the lakes at Taf Bargoed. The bonus of going up to the top end in the dark was the chance to pick up Tawny Owl for the year and see if any Woodcock were around. In the cold, and wet, dark of the morning, it looked like the Tawny's would be a blank but Woodcock could be o the cards.
Reaching the bottem end of the lakes, 3 large white shapes drifted into view - three Mute Swans. Whoa! they were all immature birds, so it looks like a record count for the species was on the cards - provided, of course, the resident adult bird was still around. Further up i through the rain, two more large white shapes could be vaguely made out - 2 more Swans? Bring on the light.
Walking on further, I passed the first of the morning bird scarers out with their owner for an early morning walkies. Talking to the owner, they had been up round the settling beds. So little chance now of any Woodcock!
Passing the settling beds i heard the briefest hoot. Was it a Tawny, or was it just my imagination - desperation setting in!. I waited but heard nothing further. So I decided on trying a little bit of play back. Within 30 secs a distant male hooted in response. Nice, they are still around. Just as I was wondering if the bird would come closer to investigate the potential intruder, a hoot sounded quite close. Ah, it had come closer. It hooted again, prob no more than some 50 meters away and was almost instantly answered by a distant hoot, the first responding male - so 2 males, even nicer.
As the light gradually improved, onto the count, and indeed there were 5 Mute Swans - the resident adult and 4 immature birds. The regularly wintering Teal was still present and Coot numbers had risen to 2. Mallards don't seem to be going down in number with 122 (including the 4 Gemima's).
Happy New Year Mart and you had some nice stuff and always great when it,s on your doorstep,
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