Seals at Strumble

A late white coat seal pup at Strumble. On pebble beach just below and across from steps  this afternoon, probably 7-10 days old, yowling very loudly! Another moulted youngster was close by and a big bull hanging around.

Cliff Benson, Sea Trust South  and West Wales.

Buzzards galore

I've really noticed a big increase inthe number of buzzards I'm seeing whilst driving from Marloes to Milford or Haverford, four being not unusual now. Has anyone else made a similar observation?

Polecat in the dark!

Driving along the Whitchurch road heading for Solva Woollen Mill at 5pm on Saturday we spotted a pair of eyes shining back at us from the grass verge. Suddenly the eyes became a Polecat as it ran out in front of the car and we had to do an emergency stop to avoid squashing it! A rather dramatic sighting!

Bosherston Otter

The Otters at Bosherston continue to show well although they seem to be seen individually of late rather than the threesome which have been seen for most of the year. This Otter was just up from the 8 Arch bridge. Big patches of ice on the ponds.

Colour - a competitive advantage

Phil Newman gave an interesting talk last week on nudibranchs and explained that some of them are brightly coloured to warn predators that they contain poison. This started me thinking that this may be the reason why species such as gem anemones, jewel anemones, dahlia anemones, devonshire cup corals etc stand out in their environment. Is this to warn sight-based hunters such as crabs and fish that they sting?

An interesting test of the theory might be the relative predation on snakelocks anemones - one variant is brightly coloured green and pink whereas the other is a dull grey. Which one gets eaten less? the one that stands out or the one that is camouflaged?

Over to the experts - Lou Luddington, Francis Bunker, Dale Fort FSC team and anyone else ...

Wildlife Sightings Evening

Tom Luddington and his team put on another excellent evening last Wednesday with many interesting speakers. I was able to officially launch the Pembrokeshire Wildlife Sightings blog. Please try and recruit more authors as I will be embarking on presenting this to Pembrokeshire schools to get them involved. More on this later.

Otters at Dale Fort

On November 13th a sixth form student about to survey the shore at Dale Fort Jetty Beach disturbed an otter, which ran into the water and swam off in the direction of Dale village. A week later the Dale Fort Housekeeper saw another (or possibly the same?) otter swimming in rough seas up and down the gullies off Dale Point. It caught a fish and climbed out onto the rocks, ate it, returned to the water and made off in the direction of Castle Beach.

Noctule bat

No pictures I'm afraid but I can report seeing a daytime flying noctule bat at Castle Beach Bay on 11th and 12th November. It was swooping down to drink from the stream which comes down the valley to enter the sea there. It was rather cold but presumably there were some insects flying for it to feed on because it was fluttering about for a couple of hours or so.

Healthy seal pup numbers in Skomer Marine Nature Reserve

Skomer Marine Nature Reserve records the numbers of seal pups born each year in the Reserve .  These are the Atlantic Grey seals, they are born on beaches and caves from August through to December with the peak months usually September and October.  So far this year 155 have been born at island sites and 101 at mainland sites - on track for a healthy 2010 total for the Reserve.

The mainland sites are from Martins Haven on the north side of the Marloes peninsula and  includes all the caves and bays southwards to Gateholm just before Marloes Sands. The most popular sites can be found on the 'Deer Park' and this is the easiest place for walkers to spot them, at these sites 8 pups were born the week of 15th November - so it is still worth a visit!

Posted by Kate Lock, CCW, Skomer MNR

Crane and more.

Great views of the crane today at Castlemartin. In flight it reminded me of a jumbo jet - seemingly moving too slow for such a big thing to fly. Hundreds of birds around including Lapwings, Chough, Reed bunting, Teal, strange black ducks that I couldn't get a decent enough view of to identify and 2 marsh harriers. A few different mushrooms as well. A great morning was partially spoiled by being caught speeding on Holyland road. Be warned!

Red admiral

While trying to photograph the squacco heron at Angle yesterday, I spotted a red admiral flying on the saltmarsh. It was a beautiful sunny morning but there had been a hard frost.

Borage

Not exactly wildlife but......
This medusa like plant is still flowering in fields near Sandy Haven.

The climate is obviously more favourable than it feels!

Not sure if this is common knowledge or not yet but there is a Pembrokeshire wildlife sightings event at the Merlin theatre in Haverfordwest on November 24th from 6.30 pm. Tickets and more information are available at http://www.wsevent2010.eventbrite.com/. Sounds like it could be an interesting evening. Would be great to see more events like this around the county.

Moving on to actual sightings..... Plenty of birds about - thrushes, kingfishers, jays, goosander, goldeneye, gadwall all at Stackpole; but best of all for me today was a small group of goldcrests at the Court car park. Stepped out of the car to the sound of my first goldcrests of the year. There's a lot of tree felling going on around the estate but i don't think I've ever seen the woods so alive with birds. Throw in to the mix the incredible colours on the trees and I had one of my best afternoons at Stackpole. Two otters, one fairly close - still a joy to see.

Another real highlight was the sight of 3 hen harriers near the road to Stackpole Court ( I do go to other places - honest!). They were on the ridge on the left hand side (the sloping field with a solitary tree). A first for me in that area. Sorry the pictures aren't too great.

A flock of a few hundred starlings put on a great show a few days ago on the road to Rhoscrowther. Will have to make the trip up to either North Pembs or Aberystwyth some time to see the giant flocks in those areas.

Lastly, my first live badger in many years on Jack Skones lane in Pembroke at half midnight on Saturday was a very welcome sight.

Butterflies

I saw a good condition red admiral at Slate Mill near Dale on Saturday.

Teilo Davies

Weasel in Marloes

A Weasel ran across the road just at the East edge of Marloes village yesterday morning.