Purple Reign

A morning shift in the library gave us the chance to catch up with the regular Aberystwyth winter visitors purple sandpiper and black redstart. Of the former we found two - one on the rocks by the wooden jetty and one on castle rocks. Of the latter we had a female being chased by a rock pipit around the sheltered side of the Old College. Also noteworthy were two brent geese flying north, 9 ringed plover and ca. 20 turnstone on castle rocks.

Also this week Dave had a brief view of cetti's warbler (his second sighting this year in Britain while I still had none) at Ynys-hir whilst reed cutting and I had two woodcock. One I flushed on Frongoch farm whilst putting together a conservation audit for an assignment and the other one flew by on Llanbadarn campus. Brambling still frequent the garden occasionally.