Coastal winter birds and a Firecrest at Saundersfoot

Late last week and on Saturday, Annie and I walked the entire stretch from Poppit Sands to Fishguard (in two stages) to look for wintering coastal birds. Only 4 pairs of chough (plus an individual unmated bird) were seen along the entire stretch, plus a few peregrines on territory in expected locations. Ravens were fairly evenly spread with at least 12-13 pairs (some about to lay in fully built nests). Along the entire stretch we saw no kestrels and only a handful of stonechats - small passerines were really quite scarce. A couple of mergansers were seen briefly in the bay at Pwllgwaelod on Saturday but they flew off in the direction of Newport.

Last Thursday evening we also ended up at the Dudwell Starling roost. As Wendy says, still a pretty spectacular sight! From our vantage point on the south-east side of the plantation, we noted on more than one occasion broad, continuous flocks of starlings more or less extending from Withybush to beyond Wolfdale and many others were coming in at the same time from other directions of course.

We noted at least 2 goshawks (including an imm male and a female), 10 buzzards including 2 that were driving starlings out of pre-roost gatherings in nearby deciduous trees by flying deliberately at the assembled flocks. Not sure if they were successful at catching any. Felt a bit sorry for woodpigeons trying to go to roost in the conifers - it seemed a bit like being caught up in the middle of storm as they tried to avoid the incoming masses. In addition there were at least 2 peregrines hunting starlings, one at least was successful just before the final flocks went to roost under the light of a full moon.

On Sunday, whilst doing a timed-tetrad, noted a firecrest in the churchyard just north of Saundersfoot. It looks like a potentially good regular wintering location for this species - sheltered, lots of evergreen trees/shrubs offering excellent feeding and roosting places and close to water, which they seem to like. It was also nice to see a flock of around 20-25 stock doves but they were a bit panicked by two passing sparrowhawks. A flock of about 150 redwings was feeding in a pony-grazed field. More or less similar numbers were in the same location during an early winter TTV in the Christmas period cold snap.