Nature with Nev

 Article for the Majorca Daily Bulletin for the week beginning July 25th 2023. I decided to write this week about my experience of getting stung by Jellyfish in the cove at Cala San Vicente (Mallorca), as this week parts of the cove have been closed off to swimmers for that reason. Read below a section of the chapter taken from my forthcoming book, 'Not quite living the dream'.   The scene of the crime - the beautiful little cove of Cala San Vicente. So, here I am one late afternoon with my three-quarter length shorts and white pasty legs on show, all set to go into the sea. I watched an Osprey that was showing well in the area and a Booted Eagle had passed high over the ridge. At the water’s edge however, I noticed a large number of purple coloured Jellyfish  about the size of a hand. They seemed to be motionless and washing up gently onto the sand. They all seemed to be on the left side of the cove by the protruding rocks. I had heard stories of people getting stung by ...

 Article completed for the Majorca Daily Bulletin (for Friday 23rd June). Falcons and Flies They need to be wary, for a falcon looms on the horizon. Mallorca has a good variety of dragonflies and damselflies, and May to July are excellent months to see them. Most habitats will see them, especially where there are water sources nearby. They are skilful fliers, but they do have to be alert, as there is a summer breeding bird on Mallorca that is more than a match for their flying ability. Male Black-tailed Skimmer, Son Bosc, Mallorca Recently, I was watching both male and female Black-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum), a chunky looking dragonfly, flitting back and forth, and eventually landing on the soft sand. The female is an overall yellow colour, and she was perched close by on some grass stems. They can be found at areas of open water with patches of bare ground, where patrolling males like to frequently rest in the sun. They will also inhabit slow flowing waters, ponds, ma...

  Little Egrets with Lesser Black-backed Gulls in                                     the background The first thing I noticed at my visit to Goldcliff Reserve on the Gwent Levels yesterday morning, was the number of egrets present. I counted 21 Little Egrets in total which is a great number here, but mixed in with them on the first lagoon, was not one but a pair of Great White Egrets (see my previous post), but also a pair of handsome Spoonbills. Eurasian Spoonbill I arrived just after dawn to plenty of bird song, and a calm and warm early morning. En-route to the hides I saw a Magpie, Pheasants, Wren, a Chiffchaff singing, and a Kingfisher was an unexpected surprise, perched on a branch with a tiny Minnow just by the little bridge you walk over by the car park. Several Common Whitethroats were singing, and Crows and Blackbirds were added to the list. At the first hide it was clear this ...

  This handsome fellow is a Great White Egret, one of a pair I watched at the Goldcliff Reserve (Newport) on Friday June 9th. What stood out about this one was a red colour ring on the lower left leg with the letters ABP. I put the picture on my Twitter page (@ecology_cymru) and was pleased to receive a quick reply, and it seems this individual has done a fair bit of travelling already. It was ringed at Ham Wall in Somerset - https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/ham-wall/ on 29th April 2022, and since then, recovery records have shown it to have visited North Yorkshire, Lothian, Northumberland, back to Wales (Powys), then up to Doncaster, and as of only four days before I seen it, in Derbyshire. Now that is not bad going for a bird barely two years old.  ABP ringed as a chick at Ham Wall Nature Reserve (picture                                  courtesy of the RSPB ring...

 Autumn is a magical time for the world of fungi, and our mild weather interspersed with rain has made conditions ideal for them to grow. With our local lockdowns seeing me unable to venture out of my borough into Newport to visit Goldcliff for the birds, I have found myself instead spending more time than usual in the local woodlands. Although I have been watching the birds as well, I have taken the opportunity to look for fungi, and always on the search for what we call a lifer - a new species for the list. I have been seeing pictures on Twitter of people finding Earthstars, Bird's Nest Fungi and Devil's Fingers - all of which are lifers for me, and my enthusiastic search for these continue, so far to no avail, but I will keep looking. Back in September, one Thursday evening after work, fortune was to smile on me. Since a young boy and reading the then weekly and very popular Living Countryside magazine, I always desired to see certain species that stood out as they looked so...

Every now and then, a wader turns up at Goldcliff on the Gwent Levels, where I do nearly all of my coastal bird watching. Recently I was scanning through a flock of 40+ Curlews when I noticed one of them had a set of colour rings on its legs. Knowing that there is a Curlew Ringing Group locally I took some pictures and emailed them off to see if they could find out the bird's history. I was pleased to get a reply a while later, and to discover that this bird was ringed as a breeding male back on the 21st of May 2012 in Saerbeck in Poland, and has bred every year since. I was thrilled to get some feedback on this bird and it intrigues me that a bird can cover such distances. I am keeping a look out for this bird. A while back I spotted a Canada Goose with a leg ring with the letters FANC on it. It transpired this bird was ringed at Windermere several years ago and likes to frequent the Gwent Levels. There is currently a ringed Black-tailed Godwit at Goldcliff and the details and pic...