GRC Blog


Welcome to the GRC Recorders pages. This blog provides details on all the relevant news of Glamorgan’s scarcer birds, plus all BBRC & WRP decisions that affect us locally. It will also be used to document the status and occurrence of these scarcer species and we welcome contributions from anyone with photographs, artwork or documentation of rarities past, present and future. The GRC also welcomes all seawatching news from around Glamorgan and news of passage migrants in spring & autumn, uncommon birds in our area and unusual behaviour.


All visitors are welcome. You must first register by sending an email to GlamRC@gmail.com before you can contribute. An invite will be sent to your email address. Blog content will be strictly moderated. Access to pages and downloads are available to everyone. All photographs on this blog remain the property of the originator.
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The Glamorgan Rarities Committee, in conjunction with the Glamorgan Bird Club & Gower Wildlife , have agreed to co-operate with the Welsh Ornithological Society in the sharing of bird records & photographs in the interest of keeping accurate records and to promote birdwatching in North, Mid & South Wales.

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Small Dunlin at Crymlyn Burrows

 Every now and again I get a distant sighting of a bird at Crymlyn Burrows that I think is going to be a Peep. Today's Red Herring was the best one yet. Scanning the small wader flock, at this site, from distance has it's advantages in that the birds are normally easier/quicker to check for something unusual, and also much easier to take site counts. I digress. Anyway, this bird, feeding actively amongst the small wader flock, jumped out and slapped me in the face! Small! It was noticeably smaller than an average sized Dunlin! Other things like lack of tramlines and lacking a split supercillium seemed to add hope. Things like a heavily streaked chest, not much of a supercillium at all and a buff colour near the throat only added confusion.
On closing the distance to the bird I was unable to get past Dunlin and on it's own, with no other bird in the scope view, it was very good for Dunlin, only when it was alongside other Dunlins did the pulse quicken.
Looking at the lengths given for Dunlin in the Collins it shows 17cm to 21cm; an impressive range for such a small wader. I suspect this bird was even smaller still than 17cm.
Hopefully, one day, when I close the distance it won't be a Dunlin....

Common Scoter (4), Oystercatcher (570), (Ringed Plover (237), Sanderling (368), Dunlin (68), Bar-tailed Godwit (15), Curlew (12), Great Black-backed Gull (23) and an Auk sp

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