Monday 27 May 2013

Bank Holiday Monday - Coed Y Bedw - 27/05/2013

With the forecast for rain in the afternoon I took a quick walk around Coed Y Bedw in the morning, and the bluebells were out in force. Luckily for me, I also saw two spotted flycatchers, and a singing male wood warbler. It's brilliant when you get these sorts of birds barely a ten minute drive from home.










Yesterday Jess and I went to Porthkerry, initially to look for adders basking in the good weather, but we failed on that front. We saw a few types of woodland flowers, mainly herb robert, and germander speedwell, and there were also plenty of butterflies around, including brimstone, speckled wood, cabbage white and this green veined white -


Saturday 25 May 2013

Woodchat Shrike - KNNR 25/05/2013

Went down at early doors for the shrike, and got some decent views, though nothing photographic beyond passable record shots:





Crashed into this hare on the way back too:



Cracking morning out.

Monday 6 May 2013

Bank Holiday visits - 06/05/2013

Sunday saw us travel up to mid Wales to the Gwernffrwd-Dinas reserve with my family. For a grey day it was a nice afternoon, although a bit brief, I could probably have spent a few hours there easily. Pied Flycatcher was abundant, as were the Kites and Buzzards, and we also saw Redstart, my first Wood Warbler, Great Spotted Woodie, and a Marsh/Willow Tit which shall probably remain a toss-up, as well as some Treecreepers in close.
























On Monday the weather was absolutely stunning so a trip that was originally targeted towards Southerndown was redirected to Kenfig due to extreme traffic tailbacks. In fact, a twenty five minute trip to Kenfig took us two hours. When we got there we had our picnic on the dunes and then continued on to the beach, where we saw some summer plumage Sanderling in a group which also had a Ringed Plover in tow.

No sign of Purple Ronnie on our end, though we checked a few of the pools on the way all the same.