Up at 6:30 this morning, it was pitch black apart from the 10 street lights within a 50m radius of our house. The reason for this early rising was to partake in the BTO Early Bird Survey, they are trying to establish if there is any influence on bird activity from possible light pollution. Having got up so early daybreak, defined as the time when you can actually see your feeders, didn't happen until 7:40 with the first bird arrival,robin, at 7:57, 17mins after daybreak and by 8:20 I had my quota of 10 birds plus a field mouse and field vole. I'm not sure what can be interpreted from this data as when I compared the arrival times of my individual species with the averages nationally they were pretty much within 2 mins. About 2000 reports had been submitted, I was surprised that the two earliest birds at 0 mins were Tawny Owls, on or under bird feeders. 16 people had taken part in Ceredigion, you have until 12th Jan if you want to try. Sue and Terry have done it.
After this I trundled down to Ynys Hir hoping to see the White Fronts but no joy the escaped Pink-footed goose and 10 Greylags were keeping the 1000 or so Canadas company, I did get a Ring-tail Hen Harrier over the Saltings before I walked around to the new R S Thomas hide also called Ynys Feurig. Lots of mallard, teal, wigeon, shoveler, a few pintail, curlew and lapwing with just a few blackwits as the only other wader. On the walk to the hide along the boardwalk I flushed a water rail, that's the first one at Ynys Hir (for me) in 35 years.