Easterly migrants continue!

A report via Clive Hurford, of a Hobby and an Osprey over Freshwater West a few days ago (no doubt Clive will send in the records and the actual date). Yesterday at Fresh West he recorded a fine summer plum Black Tern. Good numbers of sandwich terns were still feeding off Whitesands last evening when I made a trip up onto St David's Head.

Now for an intriguing bit of detective work - not exactly waking the dead sadly! On approx Wedns 7th May, George and Sarah Davies from nr Haverfordwest noted an unusual bird in their small reedbed/pool outside their farmhouse. It flew up and perched in the trees. They did not know what it was and at first assumed that it must be some kind of snipe. However, a few days later they found it dead. Having picked up the corpse George searched the Internet for bird images and concluded that it was a Little Bittern!

They froze the corpse and eventually contacted Nathan Walton of the Wildlife Trust for advice/confirmation. He passed their contact details to me earlier today and I went to see them and the frozen corpse on my way home. Absolutely no doubt about it - a definite Little bittern in full breeding plumage. It had been seen around the pond for a few days but somehow was predated. They suspect possibly by a dog that regularly goes into the reedbed to flush out rabbits. They were happy for me to put the details of the record on the Blog.

Just goes to show, that a nice but not especially large valley pool like this (with breeding moorhen and visiting breeding kingfishers from the nearby stream - attracted by sticklebacks etc) can attract such an unexpected visitor. How many other little bitterns have slipped under the radar at such out of the way sites?

Thank-you Sarah and George for taking the time and effort to identify it and for bringing it to our attention. I still have the corpse if anyone would like to see it. It will be kept initially at Stackpole - it might not make a brilliant Museum specimen but we shall see.