Pontarddulais, Swansea - 16/1/03

[ralph]

AM walk through Pontarddulais Park, overlooking river and flooded fields. Too sunny to see much - silhouettes, mainly!

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Crow
Starling
Robin
Magpie
Blackbird
Jackdaw
Chaffinch
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Herring Gull
Black-Headed Gull
Lesser Black-Backed Gull
Song Thrush
Buzzard
Reed Bunting (5+)
Little Egret (1)
Peregrine (2)
poss. heard Water Rail

[IanF]

Good birding list Ralph - Little Egret and Peregrine as 'usual suspects ' - wish they were around here too !

[ralph]

I half-expected the Little Egret to be around before I left home. It took some finding, mind you - skulking around behind a fence a long way off. I only noticed the Peregrines on my way home. There were two of them in the air in close proximity to each other, which, as you can imagine, put absolutely everything up in the air!

Clicking on the URL below will being up the 'Multimap' of my local area. The river I usually end up walking along is right in the centre of the picture. Moving your mouse cursor over the map will bring up a finer detail map so you can see what is where. The river eventually comes out at the estuary, the name of which I am not sure. Perhaps someone can enlighten me! Oh, and I live under the red circle!

http://www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?client=public&x=259353&y=202666&scale=25000&gride=259353&gridn=203666&rt=overlay.htm

[tafflad]

Ralph , the river you walk along is called the river LOUGHOR . The egret probably roosts at WWT PENCLACWYDD , downstream approx 4 miles , where sometimes numbers approaching three figures roost . Other unusual " suspects " that are not generally available , but have been around all winter so far , include , a couple of spoonbills , a male smew , and earlier we had a long billed dowitcher , tho I believe that has now departed . The estuary Penclacwydd is situated on , is not unsurprisingly called the Loughor estuary , and the mouth is known as the BURY inlet . Very friendly " locals " Ralph , promise , ;) , regards Hugh

[ralph]

Thanks Hugh!

Greetings from over the hill, by the way!

I know there have been plenty of Egrets at Penclacwydd over the winter, and there have been up to four at any one time along the river here in Pontarddulais. I recall Penclacwydd had 168 on one day in November 2002! That would have been a nice sight. I'm still hoping a Spoonbill will make its way down here, but I guess I'm hoping for too much there!

Ah yes, the Burry Inlet. I know the name now, although I couldn't actually stick a name on the inlet I was trying to describe.

Thank you again for the geography lesson, Hugh! Very much appreciated.

:t: