Last weekend at the caravan : 30th Nov - 3rd Dec 2023

Teresa and myself made our final visit to the caravan on the last day of November staying for three nights in order to close up for the winter.

The weather was not too kind although Friday 1st Dec was bright and sunny which gave me the chance to visit Teifi Marshes for the last time this year.

Although the previous night had been very cold with a severe frost I did not expect both the pools at the Mallard and Kingfisher Hides to be frozen over thereby providing no opportunity of photographing a hunting Kingfisher.

There were however a couple of Common Snipe huddled in the cut down reeds at the Mallard Hide and Curlew, Common Redshank and Common Snipe on the edge of the river at the Curlew Hide.

With little other species to see I made my way back to the caravan calling in at the slipway near the car dealership in St Dogmaels where I found a couple of Dunlin and a Common Sandpiper.

Here are a few photos from my few hours out.......

Short-eared Owls - Return visit : 25th November 2023

Last week an old work acquaintance namely Nigel Pullen from Swansea contacted me through Facebook with a friend request that I accepted.

Nigel is an excellent photographer and enjoys the genres of landscape, portraiture and street style photography unlike myself who sticks almost exclusively to wildlife photography.

He does however dabble in some wildlife photography and so we agreed to meet up last Saturday for a trip to see and hopefully photograph the Short-eared Owls at Ginst Point, near Laugharne.

Coincidently Nigel favours the same OM Systems camera system as myself using an OM-1 camera and has an excellent wildlife lens in the 300mm f4 IS Pro prime.

I 'rocked up' at Nigel's home in Morriston at the agreed time of 10.30am and with Nigel offering to drive we were at the owl site by just after mid-day.

We managed to park quite close at the end of the access lane and following a short walk were soon taking up our position in the 'owl field'.

We were greeted by Carl Jones and his partner Emma Woodhouse who had asked me for directions a couple of nights previous and also a couple of other 'toggers' that I didn't know.

There were already 2 or 3 owls hunting when we arrived although distant and in the wrong direction for good light, they did however fly over to 'our' field and gave great although distant views.

Good friend and fellow 'birder/togger' Dave Gilbert turned up after an hour or so, he hadn't been able to make it earlier and Dave's arrival as if by magic resulted in the birds coming closer which allowed for some great photographic opportunities.

We were also joined later in the afternoon by Richard Williams a good friend of Dave's who I have also got to know who had ventured 'over the bridge' from his home in Weston Super Mare.

We all 'filled our boots' for the remainder of the afternoon with at times great light until it rapidly faded and it was time to head for home.

What a fabulous day out in great company, the owls performed superbly which was an added bonus for some of those present including Nigel who had never seen a SEO previously.

We will certainly visit again before the year is out but for the meantime here are a few photos from last Saturday.....

Waders + Gulls - Aberavon Beach : 21st November 2023

Last Tuesday afternoon myself and my dog Timmy paid a visit to Aberavon Beach with the intention of walking the length of the beach as far as the River Neath in search of a Snow Bunting which I have seen on the sands in previous years.

We started by having a stroll up the River Alan from the beach hoping for a Great Northern Diver which I have also seen in previous years.

A couple of Great Crested Grebes almost fooled me but there was no sign anywhere of a diver.

We then walked the length of 'Jackstones' Pier hoping to catch up with my first Purple Sandpiper of the winter but the pier was occupied by several fishermen fishing the incoming tide which was probably enough to put them off showing.

There were though some Ruddy Turnstoes and a couple of Rock Pipits present which obliged for some photos.

I had no luck finding a Snow Bunting along the beach but there were c150 Sanderling, c70 Oystercatchers, a few Curlew and a large gull roost present allowing me to get a few more photos......