Been hard to find any shelter from the wind the last few days. Thankfully the old Britton hide at Marloes mere, offered some on Friday afternoon, it got a bit shaky at times but stood up to the buffeting. The male Hen harrier, a kestrel and a large presumably female Peregrine were generally making light of the conditions, though the Peregrine did stall on one occasion hovering (unintentionally?) over the mere. The harrier was frequenting the west end of the mere and the fields behind the cafe. The Peregrine was chasing through Trehills fields hot on the heels of the starlings. Lots of passerines in the bottom of these fields on the northside of the mere, a cloud of skylark, linnet and pipits looked around 1,000 birds. Most of the teal were sitting tight but the 5 Tufted duck were out and about .

Even harder to find any shelter at Llys-y-fran yesterday evening with the westerly blowing directly across so optics got a bit wobbly. Frustratingly what appears to be a possible adult Caspian or Caspian hybrid was in the roost, long wishy-washy yellowy-green bill, beady black eye mid-grey mantle but primaries didn’t look right. My digiscope attempts were a disaster. 5 Yellow-legged gulls just a single adult Mediterranean gull. Gulls were late arriving as can be the case in bright weather they seem to stay foraging longer especially on the saturated fields where worms must be easy picking. Couple of counts 2500 LBB, 1750 BH gulls, 150 Herring gull at 4pm. 12 Common gull, but easy to miss these among the tightly packed roost. 6 GBB gulls. 8 Goldeneye (4m) and a dozen Mallard. 3 GC grebe. Some shooting on the opposite side at dusk put all the gulls up and brought down the Canada’s with the Barnacle goose.