Tick and twitch - 73 species seen!
- Nuthatch (Image credit: John Day)
On Tuesday, new year’s day, we held our annual tick and twitch event. Helped by lovely weather this year’s event was particularly popular, with many people, including plenty of children, taking part. The car park filled up very quickly with many visitors heading down to the British Steel Hide in the morning to make the most of the high tide, which brought the birds closer to the hide. A tawny owl was also seen near to the play area early on.
Armed with lists of every species ever seen on site on 1 January, visitors ticked off every species of wild bird they encountered throughout the day. The morning guide in the hide session from the British Steel Hide saw visitors tick off birds including peregrine, brent geese, sparrowhawk, great crested grebe and snipe, and the total quickly crept up. The day finished with a massive 73 species seen, beating last year’s total of 64!
Despite the huge number, due to relatively mild weather some species ordinarily seen, such as greenshank and knot, were not seen at all during the day. The bittern that has been roosting opposite the Peter Scott hide also did not make an appearance, but visitors were pleased to see the nuthatch visit the bird feeders – a very rare sight here!
With a very good start to their year’s bird lists, our visitors can look forward to seeing many other species throughout the year. Once our winter migrants have left, we can look forward to the arrival of other birds including chiffchaffs and reed warblers in the summer. In total, 213 different species of bird have been seen at WWT Llanelli over the years!
If you’d like to keep adding to your list, look out for our family bird watching and telescope in the tower sessions at weekends, where our guides will be happy to help you spot and identify birds. You can also attend our dawn chorus event on Saturday 4 May to hear and start to learn the wonderful songs of many of our resident and summer migrant birds.
All species seen:
Mute swan, brent goose, Canada goose, greylag goose, gadwall, goldeneye, mallard, pintail, pochard, red breasted merganser, shelduck, shoveler, teal, tufted duck, wigeon, bar-tailed godwit, black-tailed godwit, curlew, dunlin, lapwing, redshank, snipe, oystercatcher, blackbird, blue tit, bullfinch, carrion crow, Cetti’s warbler, chaffinch, dunnock, nuthatch, fieldfare, goldcrest, coal tit, goldfinch, great tit, greenfinch, house sparrow, jay, jackdaw, linnet, long-tailed tit, magpie, meadow pipit, pied wagtail, raven, redwing, robin, song thrush, starling, treecreeper, wren, buzzard, kestrel, sparrowhawk, peregrine, black-headed gull, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, tawny owl, collared dove, coot, cormorant, little egret, great crested grebe, great spotted woodpecker, grey heron, kingfisher, little grebe, moorhen, water rail, woodpigeon.
