Dowlais scrape area, migration and breeding in full swing

 Despite the continuing cold weather; migrant birds such as this Wheatear have been passing through. This bird was one of a flock of 6 that stayed a few hours this weekend.




It looked like the local swallows had arrived en-masse when 4 one day became 24 the next all on wires along Strode Road, then just as suddenly most of them vanished.



Bar-tailed Godwit numbers have decreased but there are still Whimbrel moving through and these use all of the Dowlais fields, not just the scrape showing how important it is to keep as much habitat as possible for them and Curlews as both species are in serious decline.


This video was taken from a gate in Strode Road itself when the birds happened to be much closer than normal




Today a rarer wader graced the scrape. This was a Little Stint. It is really small as the name suggests and this could be seen when it fed next to a Dunlin and a Ringed Plover at one point. Both of those are small waders themselves.

This was an excellent find by Steve from Yatton, one of several birders to visit the area regularly


It spent most of its time on one of the remaining small patches of water left




Other migrants included several species of warbler such as this Sedge Warbler


As far as breeding goes it is very tricky to accurately assess numbers from the perimeter fences but one Lapwing nest is clear and others are suspected


Lapwing on nest at Dowlais


I am hoping that the water levels are maintained high enough for the Redshank and Snipe chicks to have plenty of wet places to feed away from the predatory Crows etc.

In fact I have tried to engage with North Somerset Council to find out their plans for the area, both short and long term.


Together with colleagues I have offered to do surveys into the biodiversity of the area as there are several knowledgeable people in and around Clevedon with expertise in a variety of insect and other groups.


Initially the Council were very enthusiastic and said to expect important good news soon but since then there has been no concrete contact which worries me slightly.


Hopefully this is just due to the relevant people being very busy due to the pandemic as it is a crucial place for local breeding waders.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cape Verde 2 : six days on Santa Antao

Image
 Our first two big bonuses were that we managed to agree an extension on the villa hire and that a company based at the dock had a car for hire for the whole period. The villa was a pig to find as the instructions got lost in the ether until we actually arrived. Once we did find it it was a great base for us. The sea views were a bit too distant for birds though and despite a lot of staring out I did not see a cetacean all stay. Our villa was in the N E corner between Ribiera Grande and Sinagoga. It was a great base with a bedroom each and 5 bathrooms along with a large kitchen and lounge. The pool was frankly only used by Jim and the two Jacuzzis were wasted on us.  For future reference we found the villa on VRBO hosted by Lolo Fildes and described as a luxury villa. I would not hesitate to recommend it. Birds. First and foremost our plan was to follow up on Peter Stronach's sightings of Black-capped Petrels. T do this the team scoped out likely sites for seawatches while I nursed
Read more

Cape Verde 1 : in search of rare petrels and new insects

Image
 A year ago an intrepid Scottish birder called Peter Stronach discovered a likely breeding colony of Black-capped Petrels on the island of Santa Antao in the Cape Verde islands. Having had an interest in seabirds since university, this seemed a great opportunity to follow up his observations. Accordingly 4 of us set off from Bristol airport on Monday Jan 29th 2024 to try and follow in his footsteps. Santa Antao is not straightforward to reach so we first flew to Lisbon and overnighted in a Holiday Inn Express.  The next mornig we caught a TAP flight to Sao Vicente where we planned to explore and seawatch for a few days while working out if we could get ferries to other islands and watch from them. While this sort of planning seems simple in the world of the internet, it doesn't work like that in the cape verdes. Our first contact, however was superb meeting us at the airport and handing over our hire car at his office. No paperwork seemed to be involved and we simply set off for a
Read more
Image
 After my success with the Duke of Burgundy butterfly I was inspired to go for another species I have not seen for years. This was the Small Blue and I chose Stoke Camp. Again, like the Common Clubtail dragonfly I only saw one individual but this was more down to me abandoning it early when my camera battery gave out and my spare appeared to be empty so all my own fault. One is still so much better than none though and I was happy with my initial shots I also got an underside view  There were not many butterflies on the wing despite a temperature of 20 degrees but I did get close to this Small Heath and I always enjoy seeing Brown Argus Otherwise a Painted Lady was a surprise migrant and the first Meadow Browns I have seen this year barrelled past in the stiff breeze. These will be species I suspect that I will see many times later in the year
Read more