Swanning around...

On my way to Newtown today, I decide to stop off a see the Whooper Swans that winter between Caersws and Aberhafesp. Numbers vary from year to year, from single figures up to nearly 40! At the moment there are only 11 present, but 5 of these are juveniles which is 5 more juveniles than last year!!

 

I also managed to take a photo of these deer at Powys castle. Ok so they're not wild, but I thought I'd better upload a photo of something other than birds!!

It's that time of the month again...

The moon is finally coming up late enough for myself and a few other keen (crazy?) bird ringers to go out in the evenings and catch these nocturnal feeding birds. I managed to catch and ring 5 out of a possible 11 Woodcock this evening. A good catch by any ones standards!!

Out and about in Monts...

Spent the afternoon with Mike, doing a spot of bird watching near to where he lives. Despite not traveling too far we still managed to see plenty of birds. Highlights for me were 5+ Common Gulls (despite what it's name suggests, it's not such a common bird around mid Wales!!) feeding with a flock of around 200 Black-headed Gulls, several waders inc Golden Plover, Lapwing, Snipe, Curlew and Green Sandpiper, thousands of winter thrushes, but the best find for me today though was a Brent Goose (only the second one I've seen in Powys). These small Geese rarely make to central Wales, so I was very pleased to stumble across it.

(Lapwings with 1 Golden Plover)

Earlier in the day I managed a couple of hours birding around Welshpool, where I managed to find this Coot (4th from the left) wearing a color ring on it's left leg. It'll be interesting to see where he's come from?

Up and under...

Today myself and Tony were out putting up more nest boxes, but a bit more closer to home! After some graceful tree climbing/dangling and lots of crawling under bridges we managed to put up another 2 Kestrel boxes and 6 more Dipper boxes.

(me up a tree!!)

On our travels we did see a very large dark Fox crossing a snow covered field, and tens of Buzzards and Kites just about everywhere.

Later that even I went and checked  round a few more local Dipper bridges with no reward, but I did see my first ever Hare tracks.

Murmuration magic...

Decided to take another trip to watch the Starlings coming in to roost at Llandegley this evening. Although there were far fewer predators in the skies, they still put on a brilliant display.

(a female Peregrine trying her luck!)

Llandegley is the place to be...

Headed up to Llandegley again this evening to watch the Starlings coming in to roost, more so to see what raptors would be attempting to get a late meal before bedtime! As soon as I got there 2 Goshawks were soaring above the roost sire along with several Buzzards. By the time it was dark a total of 15-20 Buzzards, 2-3 Goshawks and a Peregrine had come to feast on the hundreds of thousands of birds coming in to roost!!

(a 'small' group coming in to roost!!) 

Coasting it...

Today myself and Tony headed off to the west coast of Wales in order to put up nest boxes for owls and kestrels, as part of an on going project for the Welsh Kite Trust (this year there are widening their conservation efforts to falcons and owls). We also managed to check a couple of known barn sites, which resulted in us catching 4 adult birds, one of which was originally ringed 5 and a half years ago!!

(one of the ways to sex Barn Owls is by the colour of their tails. The males are much whiter, with a lot less barring. Although not all are as obvious as this pair!!)

While on the coast, also manged to a few pics in a glorious sunshine, including this juvenile Shag and a couple of the Purple Sandpipers that winter at Aberystwyth. 

A new adventure for Mike...

This evening I met up with Mike, and we went up on to the Ceri Ridgeway to try a spot of wader dazzling (a technique you by ringers to catch nocturnal feeding birds). This was the first time mike had been out on one of my nocturnal ringing adventures. I thought the conditions would be perfect, how wrong was I! After walking around several fields seeing very few birds I was beginning to think we were going to catch nothing! Fortunately in the last field I managed to catch this little chap feeding in an un-frozen bit of water.

I was a bit disappointed when I missed a Jack Snipe (my favorite bird), but you can't have everything and Mike was more than happy to see a Woodcock this close. On the way back we also managed to catch and ring a Dipper which was roosting under a bridge. I also managed to find it's nest so I will be popping back in the spring to see if they manage to raise any young.

Snowy conditions also made it great for tracking animals. Several Fox track were found, which resulted in seeing 2 foxes, a Hare was also seen.

A nice start to the year...

It was a nice start to the year when a small flock of the delightful Waxwings turned up in my village. These birds rarely make it to Wales, so it made seeing them even more enjoyable.

Later in the day, Sam and I went to watch the Starling roost at nearby Llandegly. It really is quite amazing watching 500,000+ Starling coming in to roost, plus 30,000 Redwings. with this number of birds, it's no wonder birds of prey come here to feed. This evening there we Buzzzards, Red Kites, 1 pos 2 Peregrines and a Merlin.

As if we hadn't seen enough today, we also when out to a couple of my local winter Woodcock sites, to see what we could catch and ring. After a short time out in the fields we ended up with a respectable catch of: 3 Woodcock, 2 Snipe ans a Fieldfare.