October variety
Winds carried on as did the novel run of Light-bellied Brent Geese, by the14th of October there were 20 present and as of today, the 23rd, one feeding at The Webley.
Two Great Egrets were seen briefly at Mallard Pond on the Reserve on the 16th- maybe our first multiple record of this rapidly increasing breeding species (mainly Somerset)
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| Great Egret - Dianne Williams |
News from Gareth Williams on the 23rd of two Great Egrets that have been seen on the horse field between Llechryd and Cenarth everyday since then. This field always has feeding Little Egrets and Grey Herons in winter. We await sightings of other egrets in this field.
The counts of small waders has reduced over the last couple of weeks. For the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) on the 14th, the count of Ringed Plover was down to 7 and just 1 Dunlin. Only 1 Turnstone after a large count at the beginning of the month. It is unusual to record double figures of Turnstone on the Teifi but 15 were feeding on Patch on the 1st October.
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| Turnstone - Dyfed James |
Also on WeBS weekend, a new Teifi peak of 52 Mediterranean Gulls. Still a small number compared with the 1000+ which gather on coastal fields at Llanon 30 miles up the Ceredigion coast.
Other WeBS highlights were 4 Greenshank by Swallow Boats.
Wigeon are returning with a count of 76 on the 23rd, up from 25 for WeBS.
A female Red-breasted Merganser was feeding downstream of St Dogmaels on the 23rd, maybe the same bird seen on the 27th September.
The most unusual duck this month was a drake Pochard on the 2nd October from Curlew hide.
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| A record shot from Tommy Evans of this now scarce visitor to South West Wales |
A Black-tailed Godwit has been seen regularly around the Teifi Marshes, often with the Curlew at Mallard pond at high tide.
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| Black-tailed Godwit- Tommy Evans |
Otters have been seen on Mallard pond on several occasions over the last week
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| Otter - Tommy Evans |
A Firecrest was seen near Mallard hide on the 20th by Josh Pedley with a flock of Long-tailed Tits. This follows 2 ringed near Kingfisher hide on the 2nd
On Saturday 7th October, the east coast saw a large arrival of migrants, in particular, thousands of Redwing. They soon moved on and within a couple of days an increasing number were being counted in Wales.
More details on the Teifi Ringing Group blog "Firecrests, Redwings and recoveries"
A nice record of Clouded Yellow from Paul Taylor, seen on Patch on the 15th
From a quick look at historic butterfly records, it would seem to be the first record for the estuary. This year there had been several sightings in South Pembrokeshire so it was definitely one to look out for this autumn.
(Wendy J and Rich D)