Friday 21 September 2018

Mwnt seawatch and Ynyslas today

Arfon Williams, Chris Jones, Gary Reynolds and I met at Mwnt this morning with the prospect of some good seawatching. Some heavy showers throughout the later half of the session may have cost us a few birds but it was quite successful nonetheless.

6:45-12:00

1 Long-tailed Skua (juv)
9 Arctic Skua
14 Great Skua
153 Kittiwake
135 Sandwich Tern
13 commic Tern
2 Arctic Tern
1 Common Tern
153 Manx Shearwater
7 Fulmar
52 Common Scoter
166 Auk sp.
6 Leach's Petrel
6 Golden Plover
1 Curlew
1 Whimbrel
4 Sanderling
23 Dunlin
1 Turnstone


This afternoon I had a look round the dyfi. For the first couple of hours I walked my usual route around the site finding very little. Highlights were 4 Greenshank, a Wigeon, 6 Teal and a White Wag. I then went to the brickhouse to see if anything was moving, nothing much over the sea (apart from 3 Goosander heading north). There were however, flocks of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls moving south along the beach. From 4pm-6pm I counted 404 LBBGs, 7 GBBGs and 8 Herrings. Very interesting movement from my point of view.


After this I went to look at the Ynyslas wader roost. The highlight here being a juv. Curlew Sandpiper. Also present were 21 Knot, 350 Dunlin, 80 Ringed Plover, 1 Turnstone, 4 Med Gulls and a Common Tern.