Snow Bunting - Nash Point, V of G : 15th November2023

After a visit to M&S, Culverhouse Cross, Cardiff yesterday with Teresa, my eldest daughter Adele and granddaughter Olive and with time to spare in the afternoon I managed to persuade them that we urgently needed to call in at Nash Point on our way home for me to hopefully photograph the Snow Bunting that had been reported since late October and as recently as Tuesday 14th.

Upon arrival and after parking it was nice to bump into Tony Swann who advised that he had been searching for an hour and that there was no sign either of a Black Redstart which had been previously reported at the lighthouse.

We split up and after about 10 mins I found the Snow Bunting on the short grass of the large grassy car park between the cliffs and the cafe.

By the time it took for me to get my camera from the boot of my car the bird had flown but both of us saw it in flight a couple of minutes later and relocated it about 150m from it's previous position.

The bird was quite flighty and mobile but it posed long enough on the ground for both of us to get some photos.

I posted on social media and Paul Roberts commented that it was a different bird to that which had been there earlier in the month, that bird was a male whilst this one was a female.

Hadn't taken much notice of photos of the original bird due to being away on holiday so this fact passed me by.

Here are a few photos from a brief encounter......

Short-eared Owls, Ginst Point, Carmarthenshire : Sat 11th November 2023

A window in the weather last Saturday gave myself and good friend Dave Gilbert the chance of visiting Ginst Point near Laugharne in the hope of catching up with some of the large recent influx of Short-eared Owls into the UK.

Dave had already visited the previous weekend when I was travelling home from holiday when there were at least 11 Shorties present !!

We called at Laugharne first which was very pleasant in the early sunshine and picked up Little Egret, Common Redshank and Curlew on the estuary mud banks.

Pushing on to Ginst Point we arrived at the owls favoured hunting area and were greeted by Carmarthenshire birders John + Jill Davis and Linda Beech and her son.

As soon as we arrived we counted 3 birds and Linda advised that she had seen at least 5 different birds.

There were Shorties in flight for most of the time we were there which was about 3 hours and the only disappointment was that the early light we had enjoyed was lost as heavy cloud drifted in off the sea.

We did however 'fill our boots' although the birds frustratingly kept their distance, it would have made our day if they had come in a little closer.

As the light began to really fade we made our way back to my car picking up a Barn Owl starting to hunt at dusk.

A few photos from a very enjoyable day out........

 

This year's holiday : 19th October - 3rd November 2023

 A while back in the spring Teresa and myself booked this year's main holiday which was a 15 night cruise from Southampton to the Caribbean including 6 ports of call and flying back to Birmingham from Barbados.

This was a transitional cruise where the ship P & O 'Britannia' was crossing the Atlantic for the Caribbean summer after having spent our summer in Europe.

The weather was not kind for the first few days with windy conditions and a large Atlantic swell so that progress was slow and overnight we had only reached the area around Cornwall and the Scillies.

This however proved quite productive with large numbers of Cory's and Great Shearwaters albeit always at a distance.

As we progressed south past Brittany into the Bay of Biscay the elements worsened and the promenade deck (Level 4) from where I did my seawatching was closed off for a day and a half as it was considered unsafe much to my disappointment.

Early in the cruise I met Tony Chennery from Plymouth who was a member of the ORCA cetacean conservation charity who was onboard carrying out a cetacean survey as well as giving daily presentations on sea days which were very informative and enjoyable.

As we approached Madeira our first stop the sea conditions improved and myself and Tony separately did some birding after docking picking up some terns and Yellow-legged Gulls.

We then faced 6 full days at sea which I was really looking forward to but which actually turned into a bit of a birding and cetacean disaster.

Mid Atlantic was a birding desert with only perhaps the odd bird passing in a whole day but as we we approached the Caribbean things started to improve with sightings of Red-billed Tropicbird, Brown, Red-footed and Masked Boobies.

We stopped at 5 islands starting with Antigua followed by St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent and finally Barbados from where we flew back to the UK.

We undertook whale and dolphin spotting trips out of first St Lucia and then St Vincent, St Lucia provided great views of 5 Sperm Whales, a single animal followed by a group of four but no dolphins.

The trip out of St Vincent gave us great views of Bottlenose Dolphins riding the bow wave of the boat but no whales, so all in all we did ok.

Overall a nice holiday but not the best cruise we have been on over the years, here are some photos from the trip.......