Toby's Birding Blog: December 2020

After four fantastic months volunteering at Spurn, I returned home to Pembrokeshire in late November (I will eventually get around to writing up a blog post about Spurn but I have been struggling to find the time at the moment as it'll be a long one!). Since getting back I have managed to get out birding in my local patch most mornings.

The boundaries of what I call 'my patch' has shifted and changed quite a lot since I first started birding my local area in ~2014. Now, I have decided to group the sites I visit regularly in to one large patch, a 5km radius centred from the sea front at Amroth beach. Which should put an end to the shifts and changes! The patch is named the 'Amroth 5k'.

The birds. Winter is one of the best seasons on my patch, and having sorted out the patch boundaries, I set out some targets for the winter's birding that I should hopefully keep up to date on this blog. Ten species I would like to see on my patch. All of these are species I've recorded in previous years birding my local area, some only once, and others a handful of times but are always very nice to see and enjoy. Here's the list (in no particular order):

1. Great Northern Diver

2. Velvet Scoter

3. Long-tailed Duck

4. Surf Scoter

5. Purple Sandpiper

6. Iceland/Glaucous Gull (I'm not fussy, any would do!)

7. Jack Snipe

8. Woodcock

9. Firecrest

10. Black Redstart

I've got off to a pretty good start...up to today (15th December), I have recorded 5/10 of my targets in the Amroth 5k. The first target bird I got was a Woodcock flushed during the day whilst walking through the woods at the National Trust Colby Woodland on 1st.

Carmarthen Bay holds nationally important numbers of wintering Common Scoters and this year seems a great year to be checking the bay. This is one of my favourite birding activities on my patch and the Amroth 5k incorporates a large chunk of the west side of Carmarthen Bay, from Ragwen Point (Carmarthenshire) in the east to Monkstone Point (Pembrokeshire) in the west. Most birds are often distant but Red-throated Divers, Red-breasted Mergansers and Great Crested Grebes are seen regularly amongst the rafts of Common Scoters. Daily visits to the coast to check the bay produced my second patch target on the evening of 3rd, 2 female-type Velvet Scoters at Coppet Hall.

This year seems an especially good offshore with 83 Red-throated Divers between Amroth and Wiseman's Bridge on 9th being my personal highest count. This was also when I added my third target bird, a Great Northern Diver at Wiseman's Bridge. I scored a bonus bird on the 13th, a fine Black-throated Diver paddling its way east very close in at Wiseman's Bridge. A really scarce bird in Carmarthen Bay and my second patch record!

Bonus bird! This Black-throated Diver really close in off Wiseman's Bridge on 13th was quite a surprise.

The 14th brought my fourth and fifth target birds, and my overall patch highlight so far this winter. Unsettled weather over the last few days has deposited large numbers of marine invertebrates along the coast, attracting large numbers of gulls. I set out to Monkstone Point to start working through the masses of birds to see what I could find. I was still walking down the steps to the beach when I clapped my eyes on a beast of a juvenile Glaucous Gull sat on the beach with the other gulls! I enjoyed watching it for a while but a very heavy rain shower forced me to take shelter and I was unable to re-locate it when the shower had passed. 10 Purple Sandpipers (my fifth target bird) were on the rocks at Monkstone Point yesterday morning, a reliable spot to see these birds in South Pembrokeshire.