Mid September - a new season
With the strong winds bringing seabirds closer to the shore, attention of some birders turns to the sea at this time of year. Joshua Brown visited Mwnt on the 11th and in 3 hours recorded a wide range of species including a Leach's Storm Petrel, 2 Sooty Shearwater, 2 Sabine's Gulls, 106 Kittiwake, 32 Manx Shearwater and a selection of Terns 3 Arctic, 5 Common and 2 Sandwich.
On the 14th, a big Thresher Shark was seen (around 12ft) between Mwnt and Pen Peles from a Bay to Remember boat (Maddie Barber). Possibly seen again on the 15th, east of Cardigan Island.
On the 13th, Joshua Brown watched and heard 3 Yellow Wagtails fly from Patch towards Poppit. These are the only ones seen in the area this year.
On the 21st, 3 Great White Egrets landed on Teifi Marshes but didn't stay long. There are an increasing number of sightings of this species in West Wales now. On the same day, 24 were counted in the north of the county at Ynyshir, previous high counts had all been single figures.
On the afternoon of the 25th, Colin Dalton found a Mandarin on Kingfisher pond which had left by the following morning
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| Mandarin - Tommy Evans |
The monthly WeBS (Wetland Bird Survey) saw the return of Wigeon to the estuary for the winter with 55 on the 22nd and up to 107 on the 25th. Other highlights of the count that day were 5 Common Sandpipers at Pinog on the river behind St Dogmaels car park and 5 Bar-tailed Godwit opposite St Dogmael's Quay. Small wader numbers on passage in the estuary this autumn have been very low
More counting for the BTO this weekend with the national Winter Gull Survey.
Cardigan Island is a key roosting site for Herring Gulls in particular. On the island and sea at the mouth of the estuary at dusk there were 1500 Herring Gulls, 68 Great Black-backed Gulls , 55 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and 250 Black-headed Gulls. With a scope it is easy and quite pleasant to watch the gulls head to the island before sunset from a bench just beyond the Cliff Hotel golf course.
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| Watching gulls go to roost from the Cliff Hotel |
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| Mostly Herring Gulls on the rock at the end of Cardigan Island |
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| Early arrivals to the roost while it was still light |
Looking back at the 1993 gull roost survey recorded in "Birds of Pembrokeshire" Donovan and Rees, the Teifi was noted as an important site for roosting gulls. This was a winter count so a much higher count of Black-headed Gulls with arrivals from Europe. Our Common Gulls don't arrive until later in the winter when large numbers are still counted.
1993 numbers... Herring Gull 1005, Great Black-backed Gull 5, Lesser Black-backed Gull 201, Black-headed Gull 2,355 and Common Gulls 1500.