Name the location!

Fairly easy, I suspect. Taken on 22nd Sept.

Armchair Tick

Good news. The BOURC’s Taxonomic Sub-Committee have decided to split Pacific Diver from Black-throated Diver based on plumage and DNA evidence. Let's be honest - the amount of birding we're doing at the moment this is the only way any of us are likely to get any UK lifers in the forseeable future. (By the way, that's Tim's pic above of the Llys-y-Fran bird).

Big Bird

While Tim saw Worcestershire scrape home against Glamorgan 2nds, I was at the Lane watching the Lilywhites keep the mighty Wigan Athletic to a 0-0 draw. And just to prove what a strong team we have, they are currently propping up the rest of the Premiership.

Now there aren't as many birds around N17 as there are around the Pontcanna Potato Patch, apart from few scrawny feral pigeons, but I did season tick this old bird.

Chirpy (Gallus tottenhamensis)

He’s not quite prehistoric, though he is flightless and has a distinctive song.

No trematodes around either!

Cricking my neck at the cricket

Sun 21st. On a very pleasant afternoon at Sophia Gardens/Swalec Stadium/Fatkin's Folly (delete as appropriate), several Buzzards soared, Jays and a Yaffler flew through the trees, several Mistle Thrushes perched on a floodlight. An occasional Pied Wagtail "chiswicked" overhead and prehistoric Cormorants tracked over the River Taff. Why am I telling you this? Cos I was there to see Vikrams Solanki's green and white army do a job on the Glammy upstarts in the Nat West Pro 40 Play off. Worcs 186-6 (40 overs) Glam 83 ALL OUT! (23.5 overs) Worcs won by 103 runs and stay in Division One! Gloat over!

Wry grins all round!

On Sunday 7th September, the awful weather improved to be merely cool, breezy and cloudy, much better!

We decided to pop to Porthcawl to look for another bird Gill particularly wanted to see, having missed one in Mallorca a few years ago. It showed whilst she was in the ladies......So what was it?

One of these:

Gill's first Wryneck , and unusually for this species, it showed well as soon as we arrived, and stayed in view for a long time, until flying at least a couple of hundred yards inland, and therefore being lost to view.

Very nice indeed!

Spooning them in

A quick visit to Goldcliff on August 30th produced 2 Little Owls, 3 Avocets, 2 Green Sandpipers, 2 Ruff, a Spoonbill and at least 20 flighty Yellow Wagtails.

Hummer

There was little in the way of birding on a recent holiday apart from nuthatches with French accents. Fortunately, there was plenty of sunshine and lots of butterflies, moths, crickets and lizards to enjoy. I managed, with mixed success, to track this humming-bird hawk-moth. Also recorded were a number of butterflies which were new to me including, cardinal, lesser purple emperor; meadow fritillary, smoky copper and a few other fritillaries and lycaenids that still need identifying.