Squacco Heron : Watermill, Ogmore by Sea

Few photos of the Squacco Heron found earlier today by Dean Bolt.........

Squacco Heron at Watermill Flood, Ogmore

Another very good find by Mr Dean Bolt this morning at the Watermill Flood. A number of Glamorgan County listers were very keen to get this grip-back and those that made the effort to see it this morning couldn't have asked for better views.

Squacco Heron is for West Glam as Gull-billed Tern is for East Glam, with 3 previously accepted records before this year all coming from the other half of the county. This year so far shows no sign that those trends will end anytime soon.

Previous Squacco Heron records in Glamorgan:

1954 Nottage Court, Porthcawl, 17th to 30th May.

1994 Kenfig Pool, adult, 28th June.

2003 Lamby Lake, Cardiff, adult, 24th to 25th June

Squacco Heron at Watermill 29/05/2016 (Richard Smith)

Gull-billed Tern south of Loughor Bridge

An adult Gull-billed Tern was pretty much the first bird spotted (around 19:45hrs) when I took the dog for an amble at the bridge this evening. Chris Brewer, Neil Edwards and Sandra managed to get down and see it feeding with a scattered group of Black-headed Gulls before it eventually headed off to Morfa Baccas (Carms) where we left it on the sandflats at 20:20hrs.

There have now been four occurrences of Gull-billed Tern in the Burry Inlet, on each occasion birds have wandered into both vice-counties:

1987, April, Machynys (vc44) & Salthouse (vc41)

1996, July-Aug, Penclacwydd (vc44) & Crofty (vc41)

2012, June, Penclacwydd (vc44) & Loughor (vc41)

2016, May, Loughor (vc41) & Morfa Baccas (vc44)

The only other Glamorgan bird was the one at Penrice 1993. It's about time a Caspian put in another appearance!

Rhaslas

Two Little Stints 11/05/16 at Rhaslas Pool. Another excellent record from this threatened upland site. Well done to Mike Hogan for this photo of a scarce passage migrant to East Glamorgan. This constitutes the 3rd record for this species at this site.

Sker Plover - a few more to go in the melting pot! (still present on 10th May)

A couple more Plover for info.

Kenfig

Record shot of this afternoon's marsh harrier over Kenfig saltmarsh/reedbed. This morning a turtle dove landed briefly on private land between the Prince of Wales and Kenfig Pool. A nuthatch, garden warbler and 4 spotted flycatchers were of local interest

Sker Plover

The Golden Plover at Sker is causing a few of us some headaches. Whether it is an American or an European, people can judge for themselves. However, my initial feeling is that this bird appears to have too much of an European influence to be treated as an American, not a pure one at any rate! Hopefully I'm wrong.
Discussion on this bird may run but I'll post a few pics here to help things on their way. The axillaries, and underwing generally, are very much as one might expect for a European Golden Plover (EGP). Also pro EGP is the shortish wing projection. Conversely, pro American Golden Plover (AGP) is the primary projection, which appears at least 80% with 5 visible pps. The bill appears small and the bird appears leggy even in the short grass. The face has rather an open look to it which may explain why the supercillium doesn't jump out at you, or maybe it should be bolder.
This bird is seemingly a first summer bird with much of the juvenile plumage worn and faded. This might explain the rather cold tones in appearance.  If this is an AGP then it is an unusual looking one, but whatever the case no-one can deny it is a challenging and interesting bird.

American Golden Plover at Sker 6/5/16

Cattle Egrets

Two Cattle Egrets flew over the Norwegian Church heading NE at 06:55, unfortunately they didn't stop.

Had a 15 second view as they flew over. Small, compact egrets with greenish-yellow bills, legs uniform greyish-brown including toes, leg projection looked short.