Sightings
Verity Picken
Blorenge
Fri 28th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Red Grouse
Two Red Grouse, 100+ Fieldfares over, 3 Stonechat this afternoon.
Marcus Doolan
Goldcliff Lagoons
Thu 27th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Dartford Warbler
Dartford Warbler spotted in the brambles near the Marsh hide around 4pm. Bird was still present on Sun 30th Oct as confirmed by Hugh Gregory.
Also present – Redshank, 4 or 5 Snipe feeding on the mud near the Marsh hide, Lapwing, Stonechat, plenty of Fieldfare feeding on berries (no Redwings though), few hundred Starling gathering in the neighbouring fields, Woodpigeon, Long-Tailed Tits and a Kingfisher near the bridge.
Verity Picken
Zoom
Wed 26th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Saturday's GOS talk
See the GOS Home page for details of the change of zoom talk this coming Saturday. And don’t forget to sign in to hear all about the Usk Swift project which is actively supported by GOS.
Mike and Jackie Pointon
Goldcliff Lagoons
Mon 24th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Water Pipit
Water Pipit 1 Water Rail 1 Wight Wagtail 1 Teal 105 from Marsh VP. flock of 2000 starlings.
Brian Thomas
Pwll Du quarry
Sat 22nd Oct 2022
Main sighting: Ring Ouzel
11:00; 2 Ring Ouzel
Neville Davies
Goldcliff Lagoons
Sat 22nd Oct 2022
Main sighting: Migration
Morning visit (57 species) – Song thrush, dunnock, robin, 1 buzzard, crows, moorhen, wren, greylag goose and a pipistrelle bat before dawn. Snipe platform – 5 lt egrets, 1 heron, 1 shelduck, meadow pipits, excellent count of 119 mallards, 23 shoveler, 39 teal (numbers slowly increasing), pheasant, 532 black-tailed godwits with a single bar-tailed mixed in and 7 knot, kestrel, pied wagtails, bullfinch, Canada geese, pair stonechats, herring gulls, 3 snipe, raven, 2 ruff, 48 lapwing, spoonbill showed at 0736, starlings, female marsh harrier, 6 grey plover mixed in with 39 golden plover, 45 redshanks, cettis calling, 5 stock doves, cormorant, good numbers of woodpigeons overhead, chaffinches, siskins, magpies, skylarks, collard dove and jackdaws.
Fieldfares put on an awesome display, flying low down in large flocks and landing in large groups on the edge of the lagoon to drink before moving on, in excess of 3,000 through with much smaller numbers of redwings.
Seawall – 15 wigeon on the water’s edge, 41 curlew, only 1 oystercatcher, 2 pintail, 97 dunlin, black headed gulls, flock of 43 linnets and 5 swallows through.
Simon James Bedford
Shirenewton
Fri 21st Oct 2022
Main sighting: Visible migration
Over 600 (mainly Fieldfare) heading South East over Bullyhole Bottom yesterday at 1400 .Very high and block counted in 3 .Some Redwing in amaller groups and also a few mistle thrush ..Also High level mass Woodpigeon Movements with flocks well into the Hundreds .
John O'Sullivan
Penylan
Thu 20th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Thrush Migration
Astonishing spectacle of Thrushes moving E today, over the levels or coming up onto the ridge from the M4.
Many plummeted out of the sky to feed.
Movement started from 9:15 (rain stopped) to 3:30 (I went home). Much quieter from 2pm onwards but small nos still moving as I went home
A minimum 12,500 Redwing, 1500 Fieldfare, Song Thrushes, Blackbird and Mistle Thrushes were moving and also grounded to feed. A single Ring Ousel came out of a bush with a few Fieldfare.
23 Lapwing (4 E and 19 W), a Common Snipe went W, c600 Starling W and c100 Chaffinch E were also seen.
A Dunnock climbed to the top of a bush then went off high SE in the direction of Newport, watched until it disappeared.
4 Red Admiral also moved quickly through W-E.
Lots of Skylark, Meadow Pipit and Linnet in the area. A big flock of Stock Doved also.
Mike and Jackie Pointon
Ystrad Mynach
Thu 20th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Redwing
The was a movement of several hundred Redwing between 10:30 and 11:30 today, mostly flying high in an easterly direction. There were some Mistle and Song Thrushes in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church along with a flock of 15 Siskins.
Yesterday in Bedwas there was an intermittent movement of Redwing in small flocks up to 20 birds at a time.
Chris Stone and Ed Stevens
Sudbrook
Wed 19th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Common Scoter
Late report of birds seen yesterday. Between about 16:20 and 15:20 5 female/juvenile common Scoter on estuary between about a quarter to half way across. Floating down channel to near second bridge then flying slightly up stream and repeating. First spotted by Chris
Chris Stone
above M5 bridge opp pumping station Sudbrook
Wed 19th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Com scoter
5 female type Common Scoter – 29 Fieldfare +20 Redwngi
John O'sullivan
Penylan
Wed 19th Oct 2022
Main sighting: Golden Plover and Winter Thrushes
Astonishing numbers of Redwing moving today across England and Wales. In a 1 and a half hours watch at Penylan I saw a relatively low number of c 500 move E or NE as did c100 chaffinch and c30 Fieldfare. The best sighting was a flock of 35 Golden Plover which moved rapidly through heading South