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Common or Garden Birds
The National Botanic Garden of Wales is focusing on bird-watching on the weekend of February 18-19 with the help of experts from RSPB Cymru.
Staff and volunteers from RSPB Cymru will lead two guided walks per day on the Saturday (18th) and Sunday (19th) around the Garden and the Waun Las National Nature Reserve.
The Garden’s Estate manager Tim Bevan says there is every likelihood visiting bird-lovers could be in line to see snipe, linnet, dippers and more: “We have a number of different habitats so bird-watchers could be in for a treat. We have dabchicks – little grebes – on the lakes; dippers on the streams in Pont Felin Gat; and linnet, stonechat and woodpeckers in the woodland.
“We also get visited by winter migrants such as fieldfare and redstart. The hawks, harriers and red kites are a fairly common sight here, too, and I’m sure there will be special brownie points for anyone spotting our resident barn owl.”
There will be two walks per day, at 12noon and at 2pm. Please wear stout footwear and dress appropriately for an hour’s walk in February weather. RSPB Cymru will also be offering help and advice in attracting birds to your garden and what best to feed them at different times of the year.
Admission to the Garden is £8.50 (concessions £7) for adults and £4.50 for children. For more information about this or other events, call 01558 667149, email info@gardenofwales.org.uk
Images are copyright to the RSPB
The first walk on Saturday, led by Daniel Jenkins-Jones, revealed woodcock, skylark, dipper and, a real surprise, a curlew, a bird that has declined dramatically in Wales in recent years. The red kite, buzzard, greenfinch, mistle thrush, teal, cormorant, nuthatch, robin, blackbird, wood pigeon, crows, long-tailed tit, great and blue tit were not bad either. Didn’t see the raven and marsh tit this time but maybe other walkers will.
On the second Saturday walk, also led by Daniel, the birds were mostly having their afternoon naps. But we did see a little grebe, a teal, a pair of ravens in the distance, buzzards, wood pigeons, crows and starlings, nuthatches, a sparrow hawk, a flock of gulls including herring and lesser black backed and, in the woods either a marsh or a willow tit. We didn’t see the barn owl but maybe the blackbirds did as they certainly made a racket at one point.