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.


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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.

Sunday 2 February 2014

6 Snow Buntings at Whiteford Sands

A record shot of the 6 Snow Buntings on Whiteford Sands, this afternoon. Special thanks go to the couple who described the 'unusual' birds to me while I and the GOS field trip group were just about to head back to the car park. And to Dean & Sarah for their encouraging input on our quest to find the right area. We then went on to find the group of six Snow Bunts just huddled together in the middle of the beach. Certainly a personal birding high for me and many of the group.
Otherwise some good stuff included 22 Eiders, 8 Red-breasted Merganser, 1 Great Norther Diver, 3 Slavonian Grebes & 2 Peregrines from Whiteford. Also 2 Great White Egrets and a Merlin at Llanrhdian. Golden Plovers and Lapwings filling the skies in their thousands was seen regularly throughout the day, and each time always special.
Special thanks to Darren Coombs and Rob Jones for their significant help today. Also Becky Sharp, Dave Pritchard, Peter Douglas-Jones, Gary Light and Colin Stevenson for coming along on a most enjoyable day out.

It is also worth noting that Bob Tallack recorded 6 Snow Buntings at Broughton Bay, on 17th December 2013, which is about 1km SW of yesterday's sighting (SS430942). It seems likely that these are the same birds and, that they have wintered in this area. I haven't had chance to compare how this seemingly high count fairs against other database counts, but Rob Jones gave an anecdotal account of between 12-15 Snow Buntings on the Outer Worm many years ago.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glad you found the birds, there seemed to be a few more the next day :-) Sarah.