Dale & Marloes

Have spent a good few hours this weekend looking for sheltered spots on the peninsula which might be harbouring that skulking American passerine, I was fairly successful in finding the former but drew a complete blank on the latter.  In fact it was pretty quiet, most noticeable was a movement of Skylarks westwards on Saturday with several groups of 8-12 going over regularly.  A Chiffcaff at St Bride's was accompanied by a probable Firecrest but could not be confirmed, and the same area today held a large party of Long-tailed Tits which had a couple of Goldcrest and a Treecreeper for company but not the hoped for stripey Siberian Phyllosc!  It was great to get some nice views (if not photos) of a female Merlin at Marloes Mere which put most, if not all, of the ducks up (16 Wigeon, 5 Teal, 2 Shoveler and around 30 Mallard).  At the Gann this evening 10 Mediterranean Gulls were accompanied by a late first-year Sandwich Tern, and just as I thought I'd missed the large number that Derek recorded yesterday (and Richard & Giselle have been seeing on Skokholm - see their Blog), I decided to have a quick look at the Dale gull roost and boy was I glad I did - a significant ratio of Meds to Black-heads, in total 71 Mediterranean Gulls (39 adults, 3 2nd calendar-year and 29 1st calendar-year).  Wow!