Sunday, September 06, 2009

Pembrey Glossy Ibiss

What's the plural of Ibis,Ibiss just doesn't look right !!
With Wayne unavailable due to family committments an early start on Sunday morning 6th Sept saw me meet up with Dan and Gethin at our usual meeting place at Sainsburys' car park at Junc 36 on the M4 before headed West to try and catch up with the group of 10 Glossy Ibis that had recently arrived near Burry Port/Pembrey.
A pull in at the Harvester at Llandarcy saw us pick up Kevin and within half an hour we were driving down the road alongside the Shoreline Caravan Park where the distant figure of Robbie Taylor taking photos with his snazzy digital SLR and huge lense confirmed that the birds wre still there,more than that they were only some 10m or so from the edge of the road feeding in a small flooded hollow !!
We piled out of the Jeep for a good look at the birds,a quick count confirmed that the 10 were still there.
I had taken the camera hoping to digi-scope the birds at some distance,I hadn't bargained for almost being able to poke them with the end of the tripod and had to "back up" across the road just to be able to get the birds in the frame !!!
A passing jogger put the birds up and they flew to the far side of the field just after Brian Thomas had arrived to join us.
There was a large gull roost out on the sand spit so we thought we'd check it out hoping that the Glossies may have returned by the time we walked back to the car.
The large gull roost held mostly Herring,Lesser and Greater BB and a few Common Gulls but nothing more exotic.
A little further along the spit a flock of about 30 Ringed Plover foraged amongst the shingle.
Eagle-eyed Geth aka "The Twitchmeister" spied a distant Kestrel perched on a piece of driftwood until flushed by some numptie dog walkers.
Unfortunately our morning was cut short as Kevin who was "on call" over the weekend with his job received the dreaded phone call and we had to leave.
A scan of the shoreline on the way back to the car picked out a couple of Med Gulls in the distant group of BH Gulls.
As we arrived back at the car park we were informed by Robbie and Brian that the Glossies had taken flight again and this time were last seen disappearing West in the general direction of Ashburnam golf course but having checked the various sightings pages on the 'net looks like they returned shortly after to give great views.
We dropped Kev off at Llandarcy and a quick call into Eglwys Nunnydd failed to produce any terns although the wildfowl numbers are increasing and Ogmore was similarly unproductive with little there to get excited about.
Geth has yet to see RL Partridge so we doubled back to Tythegston where a scan of several fields also proved unproductive and the only birds of interest were two perched up Common Buzzards and a couple of Stock Doves that flew up off a stubble field.
No "lifers" today even for "The Twitchmeister" but a "Welsh" tick for the four of us.

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