Life has a funny way of balancing itself out. For instance, who’d have imagined that the purchase of a particularly revolting sandwich on Friday would lead to excellent views of Mediterranean Gulls come Saturday. I probably don’t need to mention that events occurred at Bracelet Bay, perhaps one of the Read more…
In the two weeks since my first patch outing of 2014 I’ve only managed to add Lesser Black-backed Gull to my tally. It was a fly over bird while getting ready for work and up to that point was the only gull to have ventured our way. That’s surprising given Read more…
Little did I realise when signing off my last entry here that an idle threat to get to grips with immature gulls would prove to be quite so prophetic. Perhaps I should explain. This morning was, as the Scottish like to put it, rather dreich. It’s a word I love Read more…
The wet West and cold East continue to do battle on the meteorological stage which, unfortunately for those of us who were hoping for a decent winter, means that the mild yet stormy conditions that have prevailed since new year are set to stay for at least the next few Read more…
Following our successful patch raid on Saturday we spent a couple of hours during the afternoon exploring Llanelli’s foreshore. In the past this has been a regular haunt of ours but an increase in anti-social behaviour during last summer meant that we have tended to stay away of late. Given Read more…
We set the alarms ready for a pre-dawn start on Saturday as a show of just how seriously I will be taking the Patchwork Challenge this year. Never before have I been out on the patch at such an early hour and I was hoping that this novel (for me Read more…
Last years inaugural Patchwork Challenge turned out to be an unprecedented success with birders around the country willing to fly the flag for their own regular haunts. For me the real delight was in the range of different habitats covered from world renowned nature reserves to small unknown localities, such Read more…
On Saturday we got our birding year off to a flying start with the traditional visit to our local WWT reserve near Llanelli. These first few weeks are always a doubly exciting time as when else can you go hunting for and ‘tick’ our commoner species such as Robin and Read more…
We spent the final few days of December in Leeds visiting family and I was pleased (!) to see that the recent Welsh climate of torrential rain and strong wind was not left behind. As a result long walks were out of the question but we still managed some very Read more…
Christmas Eve Eve was, to put it mildly, a little on the windy side. Throughout the night a constant barrage of hail, sleet, rain and god knows what else found itself hurled against our bedroom window making me wonder what the morning would bring. Fortunately drawing back the curtains on Read more…