Chettis on Goodwick Moor.

I think I was first shown Goodwick Moor by Steve Berry fifteen or more year's ago. Not long after, our erstwhile county recorder Graham Rees asked me to check it out for Chetti's Warblers as he felt it was a suitable spot for what was a scarce but colonising species at the time, despite several visits I failed to find any. Some years later ex-Skokholm warden, Mike Betts spent a couple of years living in Fishguard. One day he noticed some skulking little brown jobs he could not get a good enough view to distinguish properly. He spent several hours perched in trees until he got to grips with a couple of female Chetti's. Of course we usually find Chetti's by listening for their unmistakable burst of song but females do not sing and only a really dedicated birder would have sat in a tree for hours to find them! Of course I jumped on Mikes Bandwagon and soon after we located singing males. Last night Steve, Adrian Rogers and myself were unsuccessfully exploring the Moors potential for bats, with at least two perhaps, three Chetti's explosive song bursts clearly audible over the background hooley of a teenage gang screaming and the rumble of traffic from the ringroad above. They seem to have survived a couple of bad winters and now seem established, although I fear we may have lost the Willow Tits that were a feature of the moor in the past.