Thursday 16 February 2017

deer Park and Starlings

This morning 8 gannets close inshore following porpoise  and the Skomer cliffs full of guillemots and Fulmar.  No sign of any Canada Geese around and the Deer Park itself was very quiet.

In the last few days have plotted some massive starling flocks leaving the Dale peninsula slightly SE, passing over Herbranston almost due south and have see other flocks in the Milford area all travelling south (ish).  When I put them on a map it points to a roost somewhere around Angle village, Freshwater west (Gupton), Stackpole or possibly Orielton.   They are somewhere in that area I reckon.

Also has anyone any idea where there are large Pied Wagtail roosts this winter?  The long established one on the jetty at Valero (up to 600 birds for many years) has gone missing and the Port of Pembroke one (c.200 birds in the last two years) is also vacant.

Thursday 2 February 2017

An amazing recovery

We have just had notification of a ringing recovery for a Cormorant which apparently beats the oldest previous record by 4 years:-

Ringed on St Margarets Island on 27th June 1992 as a chick it has just been found dead at Pointe du Moustoir, Morbihan, France on 22nd January 2017.

We used to get many records from this area (usually caught in fishing nets) but almost none in recent years so this bird was 24 years and almost 7 months old compared with the 21yrs, 6months and 21 days previous oldest which was set in 1984. 

The only caveat is that the finder reported a dead bird with no idea how long it had been dead!!